For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights, a nationally touring exhibition from NEH on the Road, uses a compelling assortment of photographs, television clips, art posters, and historic artifacts to trace how images and media disseminated to the American public transformed the modern civil rights movement.
“…we had averted our eyes for far too long, turning away from the ugly reality facing us as a nation. Let the world see what I’ve seen.” – Mamie Till Bradley
This visual culture jolted Americans, both black and white, out of a state of denial or complacency. Visitors to the immersive display will explore dozens of compelling and persuasive visual images, including photographs from influential magazines, such as LIFE, JET, and EBONY; CBS news footage; and TV clips from The Ed Sullivan Show.
Also included are civil rights-era objects that exemplify the range of negative and positive imagery—from Aunt Jemima syrup dispensers and 1930s produce advertisements to Jackie Robinson baseball ephemera and 1960s children’s toys with African American portraiture. For All the World to See is not a history of the civil rights movement, but rather an exploration of the vast number of potent images that influenced how Americans perceived race and the struggle for equality.
Some of the images in For All the World to See are graphic in nature. They are included in the exhibition because they were vital to the success of the modern Civil Rights movement.
Feature Image Caption: Ernest C. Withers, Sanitation Workers Assembling for a Solidarity March, Memphis, March 28, 1968, Gelatin silver print, 8 1/2 x 14 3/4 in., National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Museum Purchase.
Sponsors
UT’s Ready for the World initiative, with additional support from Knox County, the City of Knoxville, and the Arts and Heritage Fund. The Sights of Power lecture series is made possible by the Mildred Haines and William Elijah Morris Lecture Endowment, the Intersectionality Community of Scholars (ICOS), and the Departments of Africana Studies, Art and Architecture, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology.
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- Good Times cast, TV Guide, December 14-20, 1974. From the NEH on the Road exhibition For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights. 2011. Photo: E. G. Shempf.
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- United We Shall Overcome, bumper sticker, c. 1960s. From the NEH on the Road exhibition For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights. 2011. Photo: E. G. Shempf.
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- Ernest C. Withers, Sanitation Workers Assembling for a Solidarity March, Memphis, March 28, 1968, Gelatin silver print, 8 1/2 x 14 3/4 in., National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Museum Purchase.
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- Stereotype postcards, c. 1920s. Lithograph on paper. From the NEH on the Road exhibition For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights. 2011. Photo: E. G. Shempf.
This exhibition has been made possible through the NEH on the Road, a special initiative of the National Endowment of the Humanities. It has been adapted and is being toured by Mid-America Arts Alliance. For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights was organized by The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution.
The local showing of the exhibition is sponsored by UT’s Ready for the World initiative, with additional support from Knox County, the City of Knoxville, and the Arts and Heritage Fund.
The Sights of Power lecture series is made possible by the Mildred Haines and William Elijah Morris Lecture Endowment, the Intersectionality Community of Scholars (ICOS), and the Departments of Africana Studies, Art and Architecture, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology.