"GOOD TROUBLE" Exhibit extended through September 30

 

"Good Trouble" is an exhibition of photographs that register the power of individuals to inspire movements and illustrates the power of protest from a deeply human perspective. In this exhibition, we are reminded of the power of photographs to propel action and inspire change.  The exhibition has been extended through September 30, 2023.

Protest is an invaluable way to speak truth to power. Throughout history, protests have been the driving force behind some of the most powerful social movements, exposing injustice and abuse, demanding accountability and inspiring people to keep hoping for a better future. The right to protest encompasses various rights and freedoms, including the freedom of assembly, the freedom of association, and the freedom of expression. Unfortunately, these precious rights are under attack and must be protected from those who are afraid of change and want to keep us divided.

During the course of the exhibition, several major news items have affirmed the importance of protest and standing up against injustice.

On May 8, Photojournalist Stephanie Keith was arrested while documenting a candlelight vigil in New York City for Jordan Neely, a homeless man who was choked to death on the subway. On July 7, Keith joined Gallery photographer Ryan Vizzions, who met while documenting the Standing Rock protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline, discussed their experiences documenting protest movements, recent efforts to suppress protest, and the increase in the misuse of force by police at protests.

Watch the Gallery conversation on YouTube here.

Last spring, Tennessee Republicans inadvertently turned the "Tennessee Three" — Democratic Representatives Justin J. Pearson, Gloria Johnson, and Justin Jones — into beloved national political figures by voting to expel them for supporting gun reform demands. At the end of August, Lawmakers voted 70-20 to discipline Jones, effectively preventing him from speaking during the special session. Republicans ordered state troopers to clear the galleries. The decision forced the removal not only of the protesters but also of the parents of students who had survived a deadly school shooting and were keeping a quiet and emotional watch over the proceedings. Rep. Jason Powell, D-Nashville, said "We have arrived in a very scary and sad place in the state of Tennessee. Instead of being used to enforce the public safety, they are being used to suppress democracy."

In July, New York City agreed to pay $13 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought on behalf of roughly 1,300 people who were arrested or beaten by police during racial injustice demonstrations that swept through the city during the summer of 2020. In August, Denver approved a $4.7 million settlement for more than 300 protesters who were detained for violating an emergency curfew during demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and later accused the police of using excessive force.

In August, the office of The Marion County Record in Iowa, and home of the newspaper's owner, were raided by Police in an unprecedented attack on the press. Following an international backlash, the County attorney cited 'insufficient evidence' for the search and seizure.

"When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something. You must be bold, brave, and courageous and find a way…to get in the way". – John Lewis

View the exhibition here.

"I will be traveling nearly 5,000 miles to cast my vote and I hope to see you there if you haven’t voted already" - Ryan Vizzions

 

Via Ryan Vizzions Instagram

"I will be flying home to ATL on the 2nd, landing at 7am on the 3rd and heading straight to the polls to cast my vote. Georgia is a battleground state. We can actually flip this state and begin the slow process creating real progress. I will be traveling nearly 5,000 miles to cast my vote and I hope to see you there if you haven’t voted already. This is for you @repjohnlewis! We love and miss you!"

Civil Rights Icon John Lewis, Atlanta

The Story Behind TIME's Commemorative John Lewis Cover

'It's a Picture of Someone Who Knows Who He Is.' 

The Story Behind TIME's Commemorative John Lewis Cover

Via TIME
By Okivia B. Waxman
July 21, 2020


In 1963, Steve Schapiro, then 28, was on assignment for LIFE magazine, photographing prominent civil rights activists, from James Baldwin to Fannie Lou Hamer. One day, while following Jerome Smith, a participant in the Freedom Rides that raised awareness of interstate bus segregation, he went to Clarksdale, Miss., to document one of the many training sessions that were taking place in church basements across the South. In those meetings, volunteers studied how to react to the racism they would encounter in their work. That day in Clarksdale, as Schapiro watched a line of ministers file into the church, he noticed among the group another well-known Freedom Rider, in a tie and button-down shirt: John Lewis. He asked Lewis if he could take his photo, and the young man agreed.

Weeks later, Lewis would become the youngest person on the speakers’ slate at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, addressing some 250,000 people from the Lincoln Memorial as the chairperson of the student arm of the 1960s civil rights movement, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Lewis, then 23, went on to represent Atlanta in Congress for three decades until July 17, when he died at the age of 80 after a battle with cancer. The picture Schapiro shot more than half a century ago is featured on the cover of the Aug. 3-10 issue of TIME, which dives into Lewis’s life, career and legacy.

“You can feel the determination in him to be who he is,” Schapiro tells TIME, reflecting on the photograph. “In this picture, you see he’s looking forward with an enormous amount of strength, in terms of how he sees the future. It’s a picture of someone who knows who he is, knows what he has to do, and for the rest of his life, after this picture, he did it.”


After that moment, Schapiro kept following the civil rights movement, too. He would go on to cover the March on Washington and voter registration efforts throughout the South. He covered the march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., photographing Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young and Rosa Parks. LIFE also sent him to Memphis to cover the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968. In recent years, Schapiro, now 85 and living in Chicago, has covered the Black Lives Matter movement.

Schapiro says Lewis saw the photo in 2014, after the Monroe Gallery exhibited it, and Schapiro sent Lewis a signed copy. Then, in 2015, Schapiro saw the Congressman in person for the first time since 1963. As the nation marked the 50th anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery, the two saw each other at different events where veterans of the 1960s civil rights movement gathered. Lewis told Schapiro that 1963 image was one of his favorite photos of himself; Schapiro says that earlier this year, aides to Lewis reached out to him requesting a version of the photo for a belated birthday party for the Congressman.

Schapiro hopes the TIME cover will inspire young people to pick up Lewis’ lifelong fight for racial equality and human rights.

“This is who he was in his time,” the photographer says. “Let’s see who you are in your time.”

Video: Photographer Steve Schapiro on capturing moments of John Lewis during the Civil Rights Movement

February 10 in Santa Fe: Steve Schapiro, "Eyewitness"

Steve Schapiro: CORE "Stall-In", 1964 World's Fair, New York

STEVE SCHAPIRO: EYEWITNESS

Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is honored to announce an extensive exhibition of photographs from key moments in the Civil Rights movement by one of the most respected American documentary photographers, Steve Schapiro. The exhibition opens with a reception for Steve Schapiro on Friday, February 10, from 5 to 7 PM, and will continue through April 23.

Schapiro’s photographs are made more timely with the recent Presidential campaign and election. President Trump’s recent criticisms of civil-rights leader John Lewis drew widespread criticism and have done little to reassure those uneasy about the transition from the nation’s first black president to a president still struggling to connect with most nonwhite voters. This was the first presidential election since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and there are lingering concerns Attorney General Nominee Jeff Sessions may further roll-back civil-rights protections.

“EYEWITNESS” celebrates the completion of a project based on James Baldwin’s 1963 book, “The Fire Next Time”. Steve Schapiro’s photographs documenting the civil rights movement from 1963 – 1968 are paired with essays from “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin in a major book to be published in March.

Schapiro covered many stories related the Civil Rights movement, including the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the push for voter registration and the Selma to Montgomery march. Called by Life to Memphis after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Schapiro produced some of the most iconic images of that tragic event. When the civil rights movement came to a crossroads during the Selma-to-Montgomery march of 1965, photographer Steve Schapiro captured an iconic moment from the march in an image of Dr. Martin Luther King linking arms with fellow civil rights activists John Lewis, the Rev. Jesse Douglas, James Forman and Ralph Abernathy. The image captures the leadership, the unity, and the strength of the civil rights leaders, who faced violence from law enforcement as well as death threats during their fight for voting rights for African Americans.

Steve Schapiro: Martin Luther King Marching for Voting Rights with John Lewis, Reverend Jesse Douglas, James Forman and Ralph Abernathy, Selma, 1965

Schapiro discovered photography at age of nine at a summer camp. Excited by the camera's potential, he would spend the next decades prowling the streets of his native New York trying to emulate the work of the great French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. His first formal education in photography came when he studied under the photojournalist W. Eugene Smith, and shared Smith's passion for black and white documentary work. From the beginning of Schapiro’s career, he had already set a mission for himself: to chronicle the “American Life”. 

Schapiro spent several weeks in the South with James Baldwin and became involved in many civil rights stories; he traveled with Bobby Kennedy on his Senate campaign and Presidential campaign; and did photo essays on Haight Ashbury, the Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation, and Protest in America. He photographed Andy Warhol and the New York art scene, John and Jacqueline Kennedy, poodles, beauty parlors, and performances at the famous Apollo Theater in New York. He also collaborated on projects for record covers and related art. As picture magazines declined in the 1970's and 80's he continued documentary work but also produced advertising material, publicity stills and posters for films, including, The Godfather, Rambo, The Way We Were, Risky Business, Taxi Driver, and Midnight Cowboy. From 2000 through 2003 he was a contributing photographer for American Radio Works (Minneapolis Public Radio) producing on-line documentary projects. Schapiro has photographed major stories for most of the world’s most prominent magazines, including Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, People, and Paris Match.

Since the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s seminal 1969 exhibition, Harlem on my Mind, which included a number of his images, Schapiro’s photographs have appeared in museum and gallery exhibitions world-wide. The High Museum of Art’s Road to Freedom, which traveled widely in the United States, includes numerous of his photographs from the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr. Recent one-man shows have been mounted in Los Angeles, London, Santa Fe, Amsterdam, Paris, and Berlin. Steve has had large museum retrospective exhibitions in the United States, Spain, Russia, and Germany.

Schapiro continues to work in a documentary vein. His recent series’ of photographs have been about India, Music Festivals, Mercicordia, and Black Lives Matter. Schapiro’s work is represented in many private and public collections, including the Smithsonian Museum, the High Museum of Art, the New York Metropolitan Museum and the Getty Museum. He has recently received the James Joyce Award and a fellowship to University College in Dublin.

 

Gallery hours are 10 to 5 daily.. Admission is free. For further information, please call: 505.992.0800; E-mail: info@monroegallery.com.

SELMA: 50 YEARS

Monroe Gallery of Photography

Booth #203  Photo LA

January 15 - 18, 2015

 

Monroe Gallery of Photography will be exhibiting a specially selected collection of civil rights photographs from the 1956 Selma March to Ferguson, Missouri and present day in booth #119

during the AIPAD Photography Show April 16 - 19, 2015.

All photographs by Steve Schapiro

Onlookers watch the Selma-to-Montgomery march pass thru

Montgomery, 1965

On the Road, the Selma March, 1965

"Vote", Selma March,1965

Boy with Flag, Selma March, 1965

Flag, Selma March, 1965

Martin Luther King Marching for Voting Rights with John Lewis, Reverend Jesse Douglas,

James Forman and Ralph Abernathy, Selma, 1965

Martin Luther King, Selma, Alabama, 1965

Martin Luther King, Selma, Alabama, 1965

Martin Luther King, Jr., (Megaphone), Selma, Alabama, 1965

Rosa Parks, Selma March, 1965

Martin Luther King, Andrew Young, John Lewis, Selma, 1965

Entering Montgomery, Selma March, 1965

Entering Montgomery, Selma March, 1965

Girls Watching the Selma March, Alabama, 1965

Selma Marchers Wrapped in Plastic to Protect Against the

 Rain, 1965

Related: The New Yorker: The Long Road From Selma to Montgomery

CBS News: 50 Years Later, Civil Rights

A half-century after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act, CBS News' Bob Schieffer hosted a symposium on Americans' historic fight against segregation, and the continuing struggle for equal rights for all. In this preview, the tumultuous summer of 1964 is reviewed, when three civil rights workers went missing. It also explores the impact of the civil rights movement through first-hand accounts of the activists and public figures who continue to fight for social justice today

"CBS News: 50 Years Later, Civil Rights," moderated by Bob Schieffer features civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, actress Whoopi Goldberg and others. Watch the full symposium here, and more here.

June 21, 1964: The Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner

Bill Eppridge: Mrs. Chaney and young Ben, James Chaney funeral, Meridian, Mississippi, 1964

June 21, 1964: The Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner

Steve Schapiro: John Lewis, Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1965

Rep. John Lewis 50th Anniversary of Mississippi Freedom Summer and the Lives of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner

The 50th Anniversary of Mississippi Freedom Summer

"one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced"

Photo  ©Timothy Hyde

Congressman John Lewis with Sidney Monroe, Monroe Gallery Booth,

DC Fine Art Photography Fair. To the right of Congressman Lewis' shoulder is:

 

 © Steve Schapiro Martin Luther King Marching for Voting Rights
with John Lewis, Reverend Jesse Douglas, James Forman
 and Ralph Abernathy, Selma, 1965

Photo ©Timothy Hyde

Congressman John Lewis viewing Ernest C. Withers' iconic

"I Am A Man" photograph

 

 

 

 © Steve Schapiro: John Lewis, Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1963