Press

ALBANY, N.Y. - Photographers conveyed the striking images of the Civil Rights Era that galvanized a country. Those moments are captured in "We Shall Overcome: Photographs from America's Civil Rights Era" on view at the New York State Museum's Photography Gallery from Jan. 15 to Feb 28.

Photographer Gordon Parks, the internationally acclaimed Life Magazine photojournalist and director of films including the "The Learning Tree" and "Shaft," will speak about his role on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 5 p.m. in the Museum Theatre. Parks' works featured in the exhibition are drawn from an assignment from Life in 1963 when he traveled with Malcolm X. As part of the State Education Department, the Museum is committed to providing educational opportunities through exhibits like "We Shall Overcome."

The roles of Parks and several other prominent American photographers are explored in "We Shall Overcome" as they documented one of the most decisive periods in this nation's history. The 80 black-and-white photographs focus on key events and personalities of the Civil Rights Era (1954-1968).

"We Shall Overcome" was developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, and curated by Robert Phelan of Salem, N.Y., an art historian, museum curator, attorney and former director of CREED Photos (a database for civil rights). Phelan teaches a class at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst titled "Legal and Extra Legal Strategies and the American Civil Rights Movement."

Works in "We Shall Overcome" are by some of America's most thoughtful and gifted photographers. In addition to Parks and fellow Life photographer, Charles Moore; the exhibition features Magnum photographers Bob Adelman and Leonard Freed; then-staff photographer for the Nation of Islam, Robert Sengstacke; and Black Star photographers Matt Herron and Bob Fitch.

Drawn from the personal collections of the artists, these works bring the viewer into the presence of the people and events of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

The striking photographs in the exhibition are juxtaposed with the words of Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Harner and Malcolm X.

"We Shall Overcome" ends with a selection of photographs of King taken by each of the photographers.

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*Call 518/474-0079 for slides or to arrange interviews with the photographers and curator.