RENWL

8/14/65 - LOS ANGELES - Watts Riots photo

Accompanied with sound recording over 170 photographs from 35 photographers are on display of the black Civil Rights movement at the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles. “Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968,” vividly chronicles the mass social unrest and historical journey of the nation’s African Americans to equality and full civil rights.

The exhibition also features a documentary especially commissioned for the exhibit that highlights the work of the Jewish community in support of the civil rights movement. Other materials include artifacts such as sound recordings, speeches and local events like the picketing the Kress department store in Pasadena (1960) and the Watts Riots (1965).

The exhibition is on display through March 7, 2010.  We think this would be an outstanding educational and inspirational event for all supporters and non-supporters of LGBT  equality to check out. While many blacks are quick to point out that the LGBT and  the African American Civil Rights movements are not the same, the struggle for human rights and equal protection under the law is nonetheless an American legacy. It simply cannot be claimed, copyrighted or owned by one community.

So funny, just the other day our mother was reminiscing about having to crawl on her hands and knees on her living room floor with us as a toddler playfully mimicking the same right behind her during the Watts Riots. She got on her hands and knees due to the stray bullets that suddenly started to ricochet aimlessly outside in the street.  Then crawled underneath the dining room table and jerked us under there with her. We thought was a new game of sorts, she recalled.  Said we gurgled and laughed the whole time.

Those were the days.  Go to the following link for more information about Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968