Seeing through Race: A Reinterpretation of Civil Rights Photography [Paperback]

Seeing through Raceis a boldly original reinterpretation of the iconic photographs of the black civil rights struggle. Martin A. Bergers provocative and groundbreaking study shows how the very pictures credited with arousing white sympathy, and thereby paving the way for civil rights legislation, actually limited the scope of racial reform in the 1960s. Berger analyzes many of these famous imagesdogs and fire hoses turned against peaceful black marchers in Birmingham, tear gas and clubs wielded against voting-rights marchers in Selmaand argues that because white sympathy was dependent on photographs of powerless blacks, these unforgettable pictures undermined efforts to enactor even imaginereforms that threatened to upend the racial balance of power.

Martin A. Bergeris Professor and Director of the Visual Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author ofMan Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age ManhoodandSight Unseen: Whiteness and American Visual Culture, both from UC Press.David J. Garrowis the Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofBearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Seeing Through Raceis an indispensable and highly original account of how white Americans understood and remembered the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Berger shows us why photography was so central to civil rights, and his readings of iconic images are always penetrating and at times brilliant. His central argument, that whites wanted to be in charge of the movement, is complemented with rich insights on almost every page. It should be required reading for anyone interested in protest movements.

John Stauffer, Chair of the History of American Civilization and Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University



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