Seeing through Race: A Reinterpretation of Civil Rights Photography by Martin A. Berger (PDF)

Description

Seeing through Race is a boldly original reinterpretation of the iconic photographs of the black civil rights struggle. Martin A. Berger’s provocative and groundbreaking study shows how the very pictures credited with arousing white sympathy, and thereby paving the way for civil rights legislation, actually limited the scope of racial reform in the 1960s. Berger analyzes many of these famous images―dogs and fire hoses turned against peaceful black marchers in Birmingham, tear gas and clubs wielded against voting-rights marchers in Selma―and argues that because white sympathy was dependent on photographs of powerless blacks, these unforgettable pictures undermined efforts to enact―or even imagine―reforms that threatened to upend the racial balance of power.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Brilliant, provocative study of photographs of the US civil rights movement . . . . A first-rate book!” ― CHOICE”A well-researched and nuanced analysis of iconic civil rights images. . . . A compelling work.” ― American Studies Journal”. . . A compelling work that contributes to the rich scholarship on the African American experience in the United States. It also provides an important example of the ways that a critical engagement with the meaning and construction of whiteness contributes to the projects of social justice equality.” ― American Studies“A comprehensive study of the language in which editors, reporters, and photographers shaped and demarcated the period’s field of vision.” ― CAA Reviews From the Inside Flap “Seeing Through Race is an indispensable and highly original account of how white Americans understood and remembered the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Berger shows us why photography was so central to civil rights, and his readings of iconic images are always penetrating and at times brilliant. His central argument, that whites wanted to be in charge of the movement, is complemented with rich insights on almost every page. It should be required reading for anyone interested in protest movements.”—John Stauffer, Chair of the History of American Civilization and Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University “The fervor of the 1960s civil rights movement may seem outdated by now, but terrible scenes enacted on the streets of Selma and Birmingham are preserved in the mass of surviving news photographs. Martin Berger argues that these pictures were never simple visual documents. By awakening the nation to the horrific violence of fire hoses and attack dogs, they defined what was meant by “civil rights movement.” Always engaging in its narrative as well as in its analytical and theoretical discourse, Seeing through Race is a stunning achievement both as history and as criticism.” —Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Gray, Jr. Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Yale University From the Back Cover “Seeing Through Race is an indispensable and highly original account of how white Americans understood and remembered the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Berger shows us why photography was so central to civil rights, and his readings of iconic images are always penetrating and at times brilliant. His central argument, that whites wanted to be in charge of the movement, is complemented with rich insights on almost every page. It should be required reading for anyone interested in protest movements.”―John Stauffer, Chair of the History of American Civilization and Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University “The fervor of the 1960s civil rights movement may seem outdated by now, but terrible scenes enacted on the streets of Selma and Birmingham are preserved in the mass of surviving news photographs. Martin Berger argues that these pictures were never simple visual documents. By awakening the nation to the horrific violence of fire hoses and attack dogs, they defined what was meant by “civil rights movement.” Always engaging in its narrative as well as in its analytical and theoretical discourse, Seeing through Race is a stunning achievement both as history and as criticism.” ―Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Gray, Jr. Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Yale University About the Author Martin A. Berger is Professor and Director of the Visual Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age Manhood and Sight Unseen: Whiteness and American Visual Culture, both from UC Press. David J. Garrow is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Seeing Through Race is an analysis of the power of photographs to shape a movement and galvanize public opinion, often with mixed results. The forward does an excellent job of framing this older investigation into the African American civil rights struggle of the 1960s.

⭐Excellent book that notes what happened to race relations through photos taken in the 1960’s. The white’s views of African-Americans is based on their being able to see them as docile and victims. This is not only true of Southern whites but of Northerners as well.

⭐Never have I read a more pompous, stupid book. This man considers himself an expert in history, sociology, psychology and photography. Oh, I forgot journalism. Some of his points are just stupid–as he thinks reporters and photographers in the middle of a riot are just looking for the best shot to get there point across, instead of just the most interesting shot. Motives other than news seem to attach to everyone. And he uses the word shame, and then finds isolated statements to support his thesis. I would not give him a passing grade.

⭐I was looking for photographs when I ordered this book. You will be disappointed by the number and quality of the photographs in this book. It is mainly text.

⭐This book is well-researched and critically tough without being dry; it is clear in purpose without being polemical; and it is assertive in its challenge to dominant narratives about American Civil Rights history. As a person who has spent his adult life trying to understand the relationship between the present and the past as mediated through documentary images and stories, I found this book refreshing and challenging. While the patterns of framing a Civil Rights narrative in familiar oppressor/oppressed roles are certainly ingrained in the US, there is only now emerging a practical language to understand it. In this way, Berger’s book offers new contributions to the larger dialogue about race in America.I only give it four stars because it is so expensive (University press-small runs!) and, of course, as an artist, I want more pictures. Maybe that’s part of the problem.

⭐In clear language, the book explains why certain photographs of the civil rights movement are endlessly circulated and others utterly ignored. The author makes a convincing case for what the famous photographs have in common and for how they’ve served the interests of mainstream whites. Reading against the grain of received interpretations of iconic images of the Civil Rights era, Berger’s argument reinvests them with unexpected richness and meaning. Read this book for its compelling engagement with its subject, but also as a virtuosic demonstration of the subtleties, and possibilities, involved in the close analysis of our historical visual culture.

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