The Long Civil Rights Movement: Photographs from the Ronnie Moore Papers, 1964 -1972
DescriptionThis digital collection, funded by the Patrick F. Taylor Foundation, consists of photographs from the Ronnie Moore papers located at the Amistad Research Center. Moore is a civil rights activist and community development consultant who trained leaders in community organization, youth development, cultural diversity, and team building. Moore was the field secretary in the South for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the executive director of the Scholarship, Education and Defense Fund for Racial Equality, Inc. (SEDFRE). These photographs were collected by Moore in his roles with CORE and SEDFRE.
The Ronnie Moore digital collection captures the political and social empowerment of African Americans in the South during the 1960s. Images of CORE activists, and the African American populations they served, are displayed in photographs of voter registration drives in Florida and South Carolina, freedom schools in Mississippi, and direct protest demonstrations in Louisiana and North Carolina. Images from Moore’s work with SEDFRE emphasize the economic activism carried out by African Americans during the late 1960s and 1970s in Northern states such as New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Maryland. Other economic initiatives depicted are farming cooperatives in Louisiana, job training for youth and adults in Mississippi, and the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign in Washington D.C.
Most importantly, Moore’s photographs exhibit a shift in the Civil Rights Movement from direct protests targeting disenfranchisement and segregationist practices in the 1960s, to federally funded programs that were created to raise the economic viability of African Americans in the 1970s.
Students, teachers, researchers, and others are encouraged to contact the Center about this digital collection and the Ronnie Moore papers. For more information, please visit the Center’s website at http://www.amistadresearchcenter.org/.