Photographed by Scott Wolff. Scanned from a slide. Color corrected by Pat Cagney.

Ruleville, Mississippi, 1964. Gwen Gillon, a SNCC Staff Member from Alabama, Conducts a Literacy Class During Freedom Summer

Artist Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)

Artist/Vendor Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)

CultureAmerican

Date1964, printed 1999

MediumGelatin silver print

Dimensions11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm)
Overall, Image: 9 × 13 1/4 in. (22.9 × 33.7 cm)

InscribedDate, print number, and a credit to Chuck Kelton (who made the print) appears on the verso of the print.

Credit LineMuseum purchase, in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank

Object number2000.14.28

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a gelatin silver print. Two African Americans; the woman, Gwen Gillon, wears a white shirt and pants and the man, slightly older and wearing a work shirt, is on the right side in a three-quarter profile. A white house and window is in the background.

Label TextDanny Lyon American, b. 1942 Ruleville, Mississippi, 1964. Gwen Gillon, a SNCC Staff Member from Alabama, Conducts a Literacy Class During Freedom Summer, 1964 Gelatin silver print (photograph), printed 1999 The 1964 Freedom Summer campaign recruited hundreds of volunteers to set up Freedom Schools in Mississippi and help blacks register to vote. Excluded from local elections, the activists organized parallel votes and sent their own candidates, including Fannie Lou Hamer (pictured right) to meet with national Democratic Party leaders. Nonetheless, change was slow, and the volunteers faced intimidation, kidnapping, and murder. Museum purchase, in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank 2000.14.28 ProvenanceThe artist; Chrysler Museum of Art Purchase, 2000. Exhibition History"Women and the Civil Rights Movement," Photography Galleries, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, June 14 - October 30, 2016.Published ReferencesDanny Lyon, _Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement: Lyndhurst Series on the South_ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 148.