Courage in the Moment: The Civil Rights Struggle, 1961–1964 (Dover Publications) is a remarkable book of photographs by Jim Wallace, accompanied by a written narrative by Paul Dickson ’61. While many mainstream Southern newspapers ignored the burgeoning civil rights movement in the early 1960s, student journalists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill bravely ventured out every day to document protest marches and other demonstrations in their town. Jim Wallace was one of these students, and he took memorable photographs primarily during the watershed year of 1963.
His pictures contain powerful scenes from a new American revolution, ranging from peaceful sit-ins and protest marches to dramatic confrontations with the authorities, to disturbing images from a Ku Klux Klan rally. Wallace was astute enough to photograph the pivotal 1963 March on Washington, and images from that memorable event are also included here.
In this moving account, Wallace recalls those dramatic days in detail and offers insightful reflections on his photographs and his memories of the people and events he captured. Many of these pictures have never been seen before. The text by Dickson and the images combine to create a vibrant document of the American civil rights movement.
Jim Wallace is a former director/curator of imaging and photographic services at the Smithsonian Institution, where he worked for three decades. His photographs have appeared in publications serviced by United Press International as well as in the Charlotte Observer and Newsweek. Paul Dickson has written more than 60 books, many of them concentrating on writing about the American language, baseball, and 20th-century American history.