“This young white New Yorker came South with a camera and a keen eye for history. And he used these simple, elegant gifts to capture the story of one of the most inspiring periods in America’s twentieth century.” –John Lewis, US Congressman
In the summer of 1962, photographer Danny Lyon packed a Nikon Reflex and an old Leica in an army bag and hitchhiked south. Within a week he was in jail in Albany, Georgia, looking through the bars at another prisoner: Martin Luther King Jr. Lyon soon became the first staff photographer for the Atlanta-based Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which already had a reputation as one of the most committed and confrontational groups fighting for civil rights. Lyon traveled with the SNCC from Mississippi to Georgia to Tennessee to Alabama, as well as to the 1963 March on Washington. More than just his photographs, Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement, updated by Twin Palms in 2010, contains Lyon’s archive of press releases, speeches, flyers, personal recollections and even facsimiles of the typed notes he took while working with the SNCC. Introduced by Julian Bond, former member of the Georgia State Senate, and with an essay by the late congressman John Lewis, this visual memoir relates the firsthand experience of a witness to one of the greatest activist movements in American history.
Danny Lyon (born 1942) was born in New York and studied history and philosophy at the University of Chicago. While a student there he met one of the “Big Six” civil rights leaders, John Lewis. He served as chief photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and documented nearly every major event of the Civil Rights Movement. In Lyon’s later career, he produced several acclaimed photographic series on motorcyclists and prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections. He has received two Guggenheim fellowships and was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in 2022.
John Lewis (1940–2020) became involved in the Civil Rights movement when he was still a teenager. He was introduced to both Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., and participated in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins as well as the 1961 Freedom Rides. As chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966, he was one of the “Big Six” civil rights leaders who coordinated the March on Washington. He represented Georgia’s 5th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 until his death in 2020.
Julian Bond (1940-2015) co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. Bolstered by the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Bond ran for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. He served until 1975, when he was then elected to the Georgia State Senate. From 1998 to 2010 he was the Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
In Memories of the Southern Civil RightsMovement, Danny
Lyon tells the compelling story of how a handful of
dedicated young people, both black and white,
forged one of the most successful grassroots organizations
in American history. The book depicts some
of the most violent and dramatic moments of
Civil Rights Movement, including Black Monday in
Danville, Virginia; the aftermath of the bombing of
the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham;
the March on Washington in 1964; and the
Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1962. Lyon's photos
were taken when he was the first sta photographer
for the StudentNonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC). The book also includes a selection of historic
SNCC documents such as press releases, telephone
logs, letters, and minutes of meetings. Pictures,
eyewitness reports, and text take the reader inside
the Civil Rights Movement, creating both a work of
art and an authentic work of history.
