Behind the Lens: Selma, 50 Years Later ~by Pete Souza
[url=http://postimg.org/image/m52mya8vh/full/][img]
[/img][/url]
The President points towards the bridge during his speech.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza).
[url=http://postimg.org/image/r50368ei5/full/][img]
[/img][/url]
Rep. John Lewis holds hands with President Obama during a prayer at the ceremony.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
March 7, 1965. It became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Six hundred people defied the warnings of authorities and attempted to march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge from Selma, Alabama, to show the desire of black American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote.
I was a young boy growing up in Massachusetts at the time, and I can’t say that I was aware of what was happening in Selma. I didn’t know the marchers were attacked at the bridge with billy clubs and tear gas. I didn’t know that there was this much hatred in the South between blacks and whites.
In later years, as I became interested in photojournalism, it was the photographs that brought that awful day to life for me.
I came to admire the photographs especially of Charles Moore, a photojournalist who was documenting civil rights for Life magazine. I probably learned more about what had happened on that day and that period of time by studying his photographs than I did in any history class I ever had in school. For me, the photographs depicted the horror and the hatred in a way that words couldn’t.
Last Saturday, as I accompanied the Obama family to Selma for the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, I couldn’t help but think of the photographs taken by Charles Moore and other brave photojournalists 50 years ago. Their photographs, taken ostensibly for daily and weekly publications, have now become powerful images for history.
More...
https://medium.com/@WhiteHouse/behind-the-lens-selma-50-years-later-68bf9a3a70
Many more images at the link. As always Pete Souza has outdone himself again.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Pete Souza has the Presidents history in pictures, six years. Such awesome pictures, our President. Now Selma. Beautiful.
