When Southern Methodist University student Loy Williams hurriedly packed his bag before climbing aboard a bus bound to join civil rights protesters in Montgomery, Ala., he grabbed his Argus C3 camera.
Photos of that terrible day were seen around the world. Historians credit the beatings, and the public outrage that followed, as a catalyst for the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
The racist violence in Selma, Alabama, 50 years ago lives in history as ‘‘Bloody Sunday,’’ but do not forget the February night of vigilantism in Marion that inspired the Selma March.
Photographer Stephen Somerstein chronicled the Selma demonstration through a series of images that authentically portray the events that took place over the course of the 54-mile march.
Spider Martin, a photographer for The Birmingham News in Alabama, captured the weekslong events of Selma in 1965 and other events of the civil rights era.
As a result of the focus on King, two of the civil rights movement's more powerful vignettes, both covered in the documentary Eyes on the Prize, are left out of the movie.
