Freedom Riders & Bus Boycotters
Visceral portraits painted in bright bluish-green hues, depict the civil rights activists who rode buses throughout the Jim Crow South, beginning in May 1961, to challenge the federal government's disinterest in ending discrimination. This portrait series tells the stories of 80 individuals who played a crucial role bringing these enforcement failures, and the racial cruelties, to a national audience, as told through their mugshots.
Original mugshots were found at www.thesmokinggun.com and used as the source material. The plaques, as held by the activists from the 1961 arrests, carry information of place and date of arrest; precise documentation at intake. Whereas in 1956 the men and women arrested were merely seated and photographed with arbitrary numbers. As the movement matured in focus and organizing power, police department intake and photography become more sophisticated.
Previously exhibited at the Nashville Public Library Courtyard Gallery and at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill for the 50th Anniversary.
