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

Atlanta, Georgia, Winter 1963/64. An Anonymous Woman, Who has Come Upon a Mob Abusing Demonstrators with Kicks, Blows and Burning Cigarettes, Holds the Mob at Bay and Protects the Demonstrators

Artist Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)

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

CultureAmerican

Date1963-1964, 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 LinePurchase, gift of Patricia L. Raymond

Object number2000.14.23

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a gelatin silver print. A woman wearing a floral dress, with a hand on one hip and books in the other, speaks to a man with a cigarette. They are surrounded by a crowd of white men. The city street scene is in the background.

Label TextDanny Lyon American, b. 1942 Atlanta, Georgia, Winter 1963/64. An Anonymous Woman, Who has Come Upon a Mob Abusing Demonstrators with Kicks, Blows and Burning Cigarettes, Holds the Mob at Bay and Protects the Demonstrators, ca. 1963−64 Gelatin silver print (photograph), printed 1999 Photographer Danny Lyon recalled this scene as follows: About 20 students had sat down in an intersection, holding signs that protested segregation and discrimination in hiring… A mob gathered, and a few demented people began to torment the students… A white woman, holding a ream of typing paper, just happened to be walking up the street, and she stepped into the midst of the mob, verbally accosting the most aggressive people. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she yelled at them. “What’s the matter with you?” In all the confrontations I had witnessed or would witness, I cannot ever recall anything similar happening. The crowd hesitated, then stopped completely as the woman continued her tongue-lashing. Museum purchase, in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank, and with funds provided by Patricia L. Raymond, M.D. 2000.14.23 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), 126-127.