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 © Frederick C. Baldwin 128 pp. • 9 x 11.75 • 60 duotone photos |
Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement in Savannah by Frederick C. Baldwin
Forewords by Steven High, Michael Thurmond, and Otis S. Johnson
Introductory essays by Martha Keber and Holly Koons McCullough
Distributed for the Telfair Museum of Art
Marking the forty-fifth anniversary of the desegregation of Savannah, this book celebrates the civil rights photographs of Frederick C. Baldwin. First exhibited at the Telfair in 1983 under the title, "... We Ain't What We Used to Be": Photographs by Frederick C. Baldwin, these historically and aesthetically important images have recently been exhibited again, accompanied by an enhanced and expanded catalogue. Baldwin's images chronicle crucial events in the civil rights movement from voter registration drives to meetings in the longshoreman's hall to public marches and demonstrations, culminating in a visit to Savannah by Martin Luther King Jr.
Baldwin depicted the local Ballot Bus; the exhaustive efforts to convince potential voters to register and the resulting long lines of African Americans at the courthouse; protest marches and prayer meetings; and finally, the transcendent moment of King's visit to Savannah. Today, Baldwin's photographs serve as potent reminders of the struggle for equality in Savannah and as evidence of the powerful role of photography in documenting and validating that struggle. The book also contains numerous interviews with and comments of Savannahians who were active in the events of the period.
From 1963 to 1964, Frederick C. Baldwin was a photographer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He later worked for a wide variety of publications including Audubon, LIFE, National Geographic, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Town & Country, Smithsonian Magazine, Newsweek, and the New York Times. Baldwin is currently chairman of FotoFest, the International Biennial of Photography and Photo-related Art.
February, 2009