Photographer Bruce Davidson got on board with the Civil Rights Movement early – before it even had a name. In the Spring of 1961, the then 28-year-old American took his seat amongst anti-segregationist campaigners on a Freedom Riders bus from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi. The law had been amended to prohibit segregation of passengers by race, but the southern states were ignoring the ruling. Police routinely arrested passengers on trumped up charges, but worse – such as vicious beatings and the firebombing of buses – occurred when mobs led by Ku Klux Klan members including rogue police officers moved against the Freedom Riders.
Davidson had worked freelance for Life magazine since 1957, but his work documenting the Civil Rights Movement from 1961 to 1965 marked him out as one of the most important photographers of the era. Always in the midst of the action, he captured seminal figures including Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks in the heat of campaign, but his archive also documents progress and hope alongside the conflict. To mark 50 years since the passing of the Civil Rights Act, Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco is hosting Time of Change: 1961-1965, a collection of Davidson’s best pictures from the period. Closing date is 3 July.
Damn the Defiant, Time of Change
1963
Gelatin silver print
8 5/8 x 13 7/8 in. image on 11 x 14 in. paper
Copyright Magnum Photos / Bruce Davidson,
courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
Time of Change
(crowd at fair)
1962
Gelatin silver print
14 3/4 x 22 1/16 in. image on 20 x 24 in. paper
Copyright Magnum Photos / Bruce Davidson,
courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
Protesters march for racial equality
in front of the Washington Monument
(from Time of Change)
1963
Gelatin silver print
8 11/16 x 12 7/8 in. image on 11 x 14 in. paper
Copyright Magnum Photos / Bruce Davidson,
courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
Time of Change
(black children walking by white children)
1962
Gelatin silver print
8 5/8 x 12 15/16 in. image on 11 x 14 in. paper
Copyright Magnum Photos / Bruce Davidson,
courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
Time of Change
(Black Crowd at Rally in Harlem)
1963
Gelatin silver print
8 7/16 x 12 5/8 in. image on 11 x 14 in. paper
Copyright Magnum Photos / Bruce Davidson,
courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
Time of Change
(two women at lunch counter)
1962
Gelatin silver print
12 5/16 x 18 5/16 in. image on 16 x 20 in. paper
Copyright Magnum Photos / Bruce Davidson,
courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
Time of Change
(woman at window with American flag)
1962
Gelatin silver print
8 3/4 x 12 15/16 in. image on 11 x 14 in. paper
Copyright Magnum Photos / Bruce Davidson,
courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
Time of Change
(boy at blackboard)
1965
Gelatin silver print
8 3/4 x 13 1/16 in. image on 11 x 14 in. paper
Copyright Magnum Photos / Bruce Davidson,
courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
