A Lens for Freedom: Civil Rights Photographs by Steve Schapiro

About the Exhibition

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 The Miami University Art Museum has for many years taken a proactive role in developing and presenting exhibitions that focus on social and racial justice. So did Steve Schapiro, the acclaimed photographer and photojournalist who documented many iconic moments during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Schapiro was here in Oxford in June 1964 on assignment for Life magazine, on the grounds of the former Western College for Women, the land on which this museum stands.

During one week in Oxford in June 1964, Schapiro photographed the training of approximately 800 volunteers for the Mississippi Freedom Project. More commonly known as Freedom Summer, the historic event launched efforts to register Black voters, and to set up Freedom Schools and Freedom Community Centers in Mississippi and other neighboring deep South states. After the first of two weeks of training in Oxford, Schapiro traveled to Mississippi where he photographed the work of the Freedom Summer volunteers and coordinators. Schapiro was there with cameras in hand photographing the highs and lows of Freedom Summer. He took photographs of volunteers helping discuss voter registration with poor, rural Blacks, and White librarians reading to and teaching Black children. Schapiro was also there to witness the retrieval of the charred remains of the car that carried Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman from Oxford to Meridian, Mississippi. The three slain civil rights workers, whose bodies were found two months later, were murdered by members of the KKK. Shaken, but undeterred, Schapiro continued documenting Freedom Summer activities in Mississippi.

Schapiro’s civil rights photographic work began in 1963 with his photo essay of writer and speaker James Baldwin. In addition to his work documenting Freedom Summer, he is best known for his photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, John Lewis and countless others who fought and died for racial justice in America. Schapiro would continue photographing civil rights activities throughout his life almost until his passing in January 2022.

A Lens for Freedom, consisting of 17 photographs and 3 contact sheets from MUAM’s permanent collection, was organized in association with the 2022 Cincinnati-based FotoFocus Biennial theme, World Record. This exhibition and associated programming was supported with a grant from FotoFocus as part of the FotoFocus Biennial 2022, and generous support of Richard and Susan Momeyer. The exhibition was dedicated to the memory of Steve Schapiro.
Images by Steve Schapiro: (at left) Freedom Now, 1964; (above right) We Shall Overcome, 1964; (far right) Civil Rights Worker’s Station Wagon, Philadelphia, Mississippi, 1964.

Exhibition graphics by Macey Chamberlin, Communication Design student.