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

Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1963. The Local Police Force Pose for a Photograph as Ministers from The National Council of Churches March to the Local Church

Artist Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)

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

CultureAmerican

Date1963, printed 1999

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 9 1/8 × 13 3/8 in. (23.2 × 34 cm)
Overall, Paper: 11 × 13 7/8 in. (27.9 × 35.2 cm)
Overall, Mat: 20 × 24 in. (50.8 × 61 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 number2000.14.20

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a gelatin silver print. This is a photograph of the police department in the street beside their automobile. One officer holds his crotch, while another officer holds up his middle finger.

Label TextDanny Lyon American, b. 1942 Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1963. The Local Police Force Pose for a Photograph as Ministers from The National Council of Churches March to the Local Church, 1963 Gelatin silver print (photograph), printed 1999 The NAACP and other activists groups recorded the particular brutality of the police in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Black women were frequent targets for harassment. If arrested, they faced confinement in overcrowded jail cells with no ventilation. The police often denied them food and water, and on hot summer days, the jail’s heating system would be turned on to further torture prisoners. Museum purchase, in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank 2000.14.20 ProvenanceThe artist; Chrysler Museum of Art Purchase, 2000. Exhibition History"Civil Rights Photography," Newseum, Arlington, Virginia, January 8 - April 30, 2001. "The World of Photography," Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photo Galleries, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, June 20, 2007 - May 25, 2008 "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), 108-109.