In a black-and-white photo from 1946, a group of African-American protestors protest outside of a Chicago ice rink they’re forbidden from entering, ironically named White City. They hold up signs: some echo their direct demand, like Put an End to Discrimination at White City others call out the hypocrisy of prejudice, like The Draft Boards Did Not Exclude Negroes. Black Americans were still forced to travel across the world to fight for their country but couldn’t go down the block to their local ice rink.
“If you’re going to tell a really quick overview of the civil rights movement, it’s typically a celebratory, heroic narrative of things that are overcome in the south,” Speltz says. “But if you slow down and take a little extra time to read more broadly, to look at more photographs, to listen to stories of our neighbors, we realize the struggle was waged nationwide in cities large and small. Racism and discrimination were not just southern aberrations, they were nationwide ills.”
One of the most striking visual parallels is a page early on in the book. An image from 1967 of a young black boy walking with his arms up, away from a herd of National Guard soldiers in Newark; above it, a black man protesting in Ferguson in August 2014 backs away from a group of heavily armed officers in riot gear—his hands are held up in the same, surrendering position 47 years later.
But photos from 50-plus years ago have instead reached through time, remaining relevant in today’s world after many thought the fight would soon end.
