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In a weapons shakedown was a Negro arrested today during attempts to register to vote in Selma, Alabama. He and others arrested failed to heed police orders to move from in front of the courthouse and line up in a side alley, January 1965

1965
gelatin silver print, wirephoto
Image: 18.9 x 15.9 cm (7 7/16 x 6 1/4 in.); Paper: 18.9 x 15.9 cm (7 7/16 x 6 1/4 in.)
Gift of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg 2021.27
Location: not on view
This artwork is known to be under copyright.

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Did You Know?

Blacks efforts to register to vote in Alabama in 1965 were met with resistance, arrest, and sometimes violence.

Description

Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination based on race in voting, Black residents in southern states were being denied access to the ballot box. This unidentified photographer used traditional artistic tools such as composition and viewpoint to communicate his feelings about this incident. The image channels symmetry and centrality to identify and imprison the protagonist, who is wedged between two cars which prophesy his incarceration.
In a weapons shakedown was a Negro arrested today during attempts to register to vote in Selma, Alabama. He and others arrested failed to heed police orders to move from in front of the courthouse and line up in a side alley, January 1965

In a weapons shakedown was a Negro arrested today during attempts to register to vote in Selma, Alabama. He and others arrested failed to heed police orders to move from in front of the courthouse and line up in a side alley, January 1965

1965

America

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