SF Chronicle Article: “Little-seen photographs of ordinary people caught up in civil rights movement”


by Regan McMahon, Chronicle Deputy Book Editor

Mine Eyes Have Seen
Bearing Witness to the Struggle for Civil Rights
Photographs by Bob Adelman; essays by Charles Johnson
TIME INC.; 196 PAGES; $29.95

“Many books have chronicled the civil rights movement and the great achievements of its leaders. What makes photojournalist and social activist Bob Adelman’s “Mine Eyes Have Seen” so distinctive is his focus on the regular folks affected by the movement and those who laid their lives on the line for it, and the fact that the artist behind the lens was no passive observer.

Adelman was a partisan, a white man who not only chronicled these people and events for national magazines such as Life, Newsweek and Time but also passionately believed in the need for radical change so that black Americans would enjoy the same rights and privileges as other U.S. citizens. He volunteered as a photographer for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.”

Read the full article.

PHOTO: “Socialite gathering, Dallas, Texas,” shows the black maid’s isolation in a world of privilege. Photo by Bob Aldeman

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