Amy Sherald’s portrait of Breonna Taylor (now part of the Smithsonian’s permanent collection) is a modern embodiment of how art intersects with the fight for racial justice. But it is also part of an artistic legacy that got its start over 150 years ago and came into focus during the height of the civil rights movement.

It’s impossible to separate the civil rights movement in the United States from the art that documented it. Imagery of racial injustice and the protests which followed during the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s filled television screens and newspaper pages like never before as media saturation reached new heights. But this deluge of information inspired a wave of art with a political purpose that put a spotlight on race in America – and set the tone for social movements to follow.

Civil rights art can be traced as far back as the photography of C.M. Battey in the post-Civil War American South. Battey’s portraits of leaders like Frederick Douglass helped both Douglas (and his peers) along with the movement for racial equity gain visibility during reconstruction. They also unintentionally helped cement photography as the definitive medium through which that movement is understood. Not that it was confined to photography alone.

CIVIL RIGHTS

A BRIEF HISTORY:

CIVIL RIGHTS