Charles Moore (photographer)

American photographer (1931–2010)

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Charles Moore

Born| (1931-03-09)March 9, 1931

Hackleburg, Alabama

Died| March 11, 2010(2010-03-11) (aged 79)

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

Nationality| American
Occupation| Photographer
Known for| photographs documenting the Civil Rights Movement

Charles Lee Moore (March 9, 1931 – March 11, 2010) was an American photographer known for his photographs documenting the Civil Rights Movement. Probably his most famous photo is of Martin Luther King Jr.'s arrest for loitering on September 3, 1958. It is this photo that sparked Moore's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

## Early life and education[edit]

Moore was born in 1931 in Hackleburg, Alabama. His father was a baptist minister. His mother died young. He has a younger brother, Jim, b. March 1936.[1] After attending local schools, he served three years in the U.S. Marines as a photographer.

Afterward he used the GI Bill to study at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California. He returned to Alabama, finding work as a photographer with the jointly owned morning and afternoon newspapers, Montgomery Advertiser and Alabama Journal.

## Career[edit]

In 1958, while working in Montgomery, Alabama, for the Montgomery Advertiser, he photographed an argument between the minister Martin Luther King Jr. and two policemen in Montgomery.[2] His photographs were distributed nationally by the Associated Press, and published in Life.

From this start, Moore traveled throughout the South documenting the activities of the Civil Rights Movement. One of his most well-known photographs Birmingham, depicts demonstrators being attacked by firemen wielding high-pressure hoses.,[3] U.S. Senator Jacob Javits, said that Moore's pictures "helped to spur passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964."[2]

In 1962, Moore left the newspapers to start a freelance career. He worked for the Black Star picture agency, which sold much of his work to Life magazine.

Moore covered the Vietnam War and conflicts in Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Haiti. He left warfare to work in nature, fashion and travel photography, in addition to corporate work.

In 1989, Moore was the first recipient of the Eastman Kodak Crystal Eagle Award for Impact in Photojournalism, which is awarded for a "body of photographic work which has influenced public perceptions on important issues of our time," in the NPPA–University of Missouri Pictures of the Year International Competition.[4]

In 2008, Moore's last photographs were of the removal of a tree at Barton Hall, a historic 1840s plantation home in northern Alabama.

## Involvement in the Civil Rights Movement[edit]

Photo of Martin Luther King Jr. being arrested for loitering while present at a colleague's court case.

On the day of September 3, 1958, Charles Moore was photographing a court case involving Ralph Abernathy for the Montgomery Advertiser when Moore witnessed two policemen attempting to arrest Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for loitering at the crowded courthouse. Moore then followed as the two policemen took King to the police headquarters where he was charged and jailed for loitering. Moore had been the only photographer present, only because he was working to document Abernathy's case, and so his photo of King's arrest is the only one available. Life Magazine then picked up this photo and published it along with a collection of Moore's work over the next few years.[5]

Charles Moore in 1961, now working for Life, heard of James Meredith's attempts to enroll at the segregated University of Mississippi, and went with a few other photographers to document the events. When he arrived two days before Meredith would be escorted to the campus, however, "[a] pack of enraged white students shoved their way into Moore's hotel room, shouting and cursing. One began to choke him before the former Golden Gloves boxer pushed him away".[6] The day of Meredith's arrival, Moore attempted to begin photographing the mob, but he was readily identified as a photographer and the mob threatened him again. Knowing he would need to get through the mob without being recognized, he bought a gas mask, and sneaked onto the campus with a student—his camera was hidden in the trunk of the car where the police did not check before they were allowed on campus. Due to the mob's attempts to keep the riot undocumented, Moore's photos are the only photos of the riot.

A Moore photograph of the Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 3, 1963

May 2, 1963, was Phase III—"D-Day"—of "Project C" when more than a thousand children stayed out of school to march in Birmingham. Moore arrived in Birmingham on the 3rd when he heard reports of attacks on the demonstrators, and he immediately began documenting the events of the march. Some of the photos show the Birmingham Fire Department spraying the demonstrators with their pressure-hoses. Others show the policemen releasing their dogs on the demonstrators, tearing and ripping the clothes of the men, women, and children. These photos are shown in Life Magazine and "Birmingham stayed on the front pages of the Times and the Post for twelve days".[5] One month later, when Alabama's Governor Wallace went to the University of Alabama campus to bar black students from registering, President Kennedy addressed Wallace's actions as well as the events in Birmingham, saying, "The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them".[7] These photos even gained international attention with "[p]hotographs appear[ing] in newspapers throughout the world and the...story...told in many languages."[8]

After witnessing demonstrators being beaten in the Selma marches, Moore needed to take a break from documenting the movement; "I had been involved in so much ugliness and I realized that I needed to do something else".[9] When Moore was in California, "doing a sex education assignment for the Saturday Evening Post",[6] he heard news of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This was the end of Moore's work in the movement, and he would not be recognized for his position in the movement until twenty years later. His work was entered in the first annual Kodak Crystal Eagle Award, and he won, sparking a renewed interest in his work.

## Death[edit]

Moore died at age 79 of complications related to Alzheimer's disease on March 11, 2010, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.[10][11]

## Publications[edit]

* Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-8173-1152-0.
* The Motherlode. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2006.

## Films[edit]

* I Fight With My Camera (2005) – video[12]

## See also[edit]

* List of photographers of the civil rights movement
* Race Riot painting by Andy Warhol

## References[edit]

1. ^ "An Interview with Charles Moore". 19 May 2011.
2. ^ a b "About Charles Moore". Kodak. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
3. ^ "Charles Moore, Photographer Of The Civil Rights Movement, Dies At 79". NPR.org. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
4. ^ Chapnick, Harold (1994). Truth Needs No Ally. Columbia, Missouri, USA: University of Missouri Press. pp. 154–155. ISBN 0-8262-0955-6.
5. ^ a b Kasher, Steven (1996). Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954–86. Abbeville Press. ISBN 978-0789206565.
6. ^ a b Kaplan, John (January 2000). "The Life Magazine Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore 1958–1965". Journalism History. 25 (4): 126–139. doi:10.1080/00947679.2000.12062526. S2CID 141405020. ProQuest 205357484.
7. ^ "Excerpt from a Report to the American People on Civil Rights, 11 June 1963". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
8. ^ No Easy Walk 1961–1963: Eyes on the Prize - America’s Civil Rights Movement 1954–1985. Films Media Group, 1994, fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=102705&xtid=58635.
9. ^ Durham, Michael S. (1991). Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore. Stewart, Tabori, and Chang. p. 32.
10. ^ Photographer Charles Moore dies at 79, Associated Press, March 15, 2010.
11. ^ Martin, Douglas (15 March 2010). "Charles Moore, Rights-Era Photographer, Dies at 79". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
12. ^ YouTube, I Fight With My Camera.

## External links[edit]

* Life magazine 17 May 1963, p. 26, at Google Books – Moore's Birmingham photographs
* Collection of Moore photographs on Kodak.com
* Charles Moore – post-mortem audio story and slideshow by NPR
* Charles Moore's final photography 2008

* v
* t
* e

Civil rights movement (1954–1968)

Events
(timeline)|

| Prior to 1954|

* Journey of Reconciliation
* Executive Order 9981
* Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore
* Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
* McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950)
* Baton Rouge bus boycott

|

1954–1959|

* Brown v. Board of Education
* Bolling v. Sharpe
* Briggs v. Elliott
* Davis v. Prince Edward County
* Gebhart v. Belton
* Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company
* Emmett Till
* Montgomery bus boycott
* Browder v. Gayle
* Tallahassee bus boycott
* Mansfield school desegregation
* 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
* "Give Us the Ballot"
* Royal Ice Cream sit-in
* Little Rock Nine
* Cooper v. Aaron
* Civil Rights Act of 1957
* Ministers' Manifesto
* Katz Drug Store sit-in
* Kissing Case
* Biloxi wade-ins

1960–1963|

* New Year's Day March
* Sit-in movement
* Greensboro sit-ins
* Nashville sit-ins
* Atlanta sit-ins
* Savannah Protest Movement
* Greenville Eight
* Civil Rights Act of 1960
* Ax Handle Saturday
* Gomillion v. Lightfoot
* Boynton v. Virginia
* University of Georgia desegregation riot
* Rock Hill sit-ins
* Robert F. Kennedy's Law Day Address
* Freedom Rides
* Anniston bombing
* Birmingham attack
* Garner v. Louisiana
* Albany Movement
* Cambridge movement
* University of Chicago sit-ins
* "Second Emancipation Proclamation"
* Meredith enrollment, Ole Miss riot
* Atlanta's Berlin Wall
* "Segregation now, segregation forever"
* Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
* 1963 Birmingham campaign
* Letter from Birmingham Jail
* Children's Crusade
* Birmingham riot
* 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
* John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights
* Detroit Walk to Freedom
* March on Washington
* "I Have a Dream"
* Big Six
* St. Augustine movement

1964–1968|

* Twenty-fourth Amendment
* Chester school protests
* Bloody Tuesday
* 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests
* Freedom Summer
* workers' murders
* Civil Rights Act of 1964
* Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
* Katzenbach v. McClung
* 1964–1965 Scripto strike
* 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches
* "How Long, Not Long"
* Voting Rights Act of 1965
* Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
* March Against Fear
* White House Conference on Civil Rights
* Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement
* Loving v. Virginia
* Memphis sanitation strike
* King assassination
* funeral
* riots
* Civil Rights Act of 1968
* Poor People's Campaign
* Green v. County School Board of New Kent County
* Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.

Activist
groups|

* Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
* Atlanta Student Movement
* Black Panther Party
* Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
* Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
* Committee for Freedom Now
* Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
* An Appeal for Human Rights
* Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
* Council of Federated Organizations
* Dallas County Voters League
* Deacons for Defense and Justice
* Georgia Council on Human Relations
* Highlander Folk School
* Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
* Lowndes County Freedom Organization
* Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
* Montgomery Improvement Association
* NAACP
* Youth Council
* Nashville Student Movement
* Nation of Islam
* Northern Student Movement
* National Council of Negro Women
* National Urban League
* Operation Breadbasket
* Regional Council of Negro Leadership
* Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
* Southern Regional Council
* Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
* The Freedom Singers
* United Auto Workers (UAW)
* Wednesdays in Mississippi
* Women's Political Council

Activists|

* Ralph Abernathy
* Victoria Gray Adams
* Zev Aelony
* Mathew Ahmann
* Muhammad Ali
* William G. Anderson
* Gwendolyn Armstrong
* Arnold Aronson
* Ella Baker
* James Baldwin
* Marion Barry
* Daisy Bates
* Harry Belafonte
* James Bevel
* Claude Black
* Gloria Blackwell
* Randolph Blackwell
* Unita Blackwell
* Ezell Blair Jr.
* Joanne Bland
* Julian Bond
* Joseph E. Boone
* William Holmes Borders
* Amelia Boynton
* Bruce Boynton
* Raylawni Branch
* Stanley Branche
* Ruby Bridges
* Aurelia Browder
* H. Rap Brown
* Ralph Bunche
* Guy Carawan
* Stokely Carmichael
* Johnnie Carr
* James Chaney
* J. L. Chestnut
* Shirley Chisholm
* Colia Lafayette Clark
* Ramsey Clark
* Septima Clark
* Xernona Clayton
* Eldridge Cleaver
* Kathleen Cleaver
* Charles E. Cobb Jr.
* Annie Lee Cooper
* Dorothy Cotton
* Claudette Colvin
* Vernon Dahmer
* Jonathan Daniels
* Abraham Lincoln Davis
* Angela Davis
* Joseph DeLaine
* Dave Dennis
* Annie Devine
* Patricia Stephens Due
* Joseph Ellwanger
* Charles Evers
* Medgar Evers
* Myrlie Evers-Williams
* Chuck Fager
* James Farmer
* Walter Fauntroy
* James Forman
* Marie Foster
* Golden Frinks
* Andrew Goodman
* Robert Graetz
* Fred Gray
* Jack Greenberg
* Dick Gregory
* Lawrence Guyot
* Prathia Hall
* Fannie Lou Hamer
* Fred Hampton
* William E. Harbour
* Vincent Harding
* Dorothy Height
* Lola Hendricks
* Aaron Henry
* Oliver Hill
* Donald L. Hollowell
* James Hood
* Myles Horton
* Zilphia Horton
* T. R. M. Howard
* Ruby Hurley
* Cecil Ivory
* Jesse Jackson
* Jimmie Lee Jackson
* Richie Jean Jackson
* T. J. Jemison
* Esau Jenkins
* Barbara Rose Johns
* Vernon Johns
* Frank Minis Johnson
* Clarence Jones
* J. Charles Jones
* Matthew Jones
* Vernon Jordan
* Tom Kahn
* Clyde Kennard
* A. D. King
* C.B. King
* Coretta Scott King
* Martin Luther King Jr.
* Martin Luther King Sr.
* Bernard Lafayette
* James Lawson
* Bernard Lee
* Sanford R. Leigh
* Jim Letherer
* Stanley Levison
* John Lewis
* Viola Liuzzo
* Z. Alexander Looby
* Joseph Lowery
* Clara Luper
* Danny Lyon
* Malcolm X
* Mae Mallory
* Vivian Malone
* Bob Mants
* Thurgood Marshall
* Benjamin Mays
* Franklin McCain
* Charles McDew
* Ralph McGill
* Floyd McKissick
* Joseph McNeil
* James Meredith
* William Ming
* Jack Minnis
* Amzie Moore
* Cecil B. Moore
* Douglas E. Moore
* Harriette Moore
* Harry T. Moore
* Queen Mother Moore
* William Lewis Moore
* Irene Morgan
* Bob Moses
* William Moyer
* Elijah Muhammad
* Diane Nash
* Charles Neblett
* Huey P. Newton
* Edgar Nixon
* Jack O'Dell
* James Orange
* Rosa Parks
* James Peck
* Charles Person
* Homer Plessy
* Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
* Fay Bellamy Powell
* Rodney N. Powell
* Al Raby
* Lincoln Ragsdale
* A. Philip Randolph
* George Raymond
* George Raymond Jr.
* Bernice Johnson Reagon
* Cordell Reagon
* James Reeb
* Frederick D. Reese
* Walter Reuther
* Gloria Richardson
* David Richmond
* Bernice Robinson
* Jo Ann Robinson
* Angela Russell
* Bayard Rustin
* Bernie Sanders
* Michael Schwerner
* Bobby Seale
* Cleveland Sellers
* Charles Sherrod
* Alexander D. Shimkin
* Fred Shuttlesworth
* Modjeska Monteith Simkins
* Glenn E. Smiley
* A. Maceo Smith
* Kelly Miller Smith
* Mary Louise Smith
* Maxine Smith
* Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
* Charles Kenzie Steele
* Hank Thomas
* Dorothy Tillman
* A. P. Tureaud
* Hartman Turnbow
* Albert Turner
* C. T. Vivian
* Wyatt Tee Walker
* Hollis Watkins
* Walter Francis White
* Roy Wilkins
* Hosea Williams
* Kale Williams
* Robert F. Williams
* Andrew Young
* Whitney Young
* Sammy Younge Jr.
* Bob Zellner
* James Zwerg

By region|

* Omaha, Nebraska
* South Carolina

Movement
songs|

* "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
* "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
* "Kumbaya"
* "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
* "Oh, Freedom"
* "This Little Light of Mine"
* "We Shall Not Be Moved"
* "We Shall Overcome"
* "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"

Influences|

* Nonviolence
* Padayatra
* Sermon on the Mount
* Mahatma Gandhi
* Ahimsa
* Satyagraha
* The Kingdom of God Is Within You
* Frederick Douglass
* W. E. B. Du Bois
* Mary McLeod Bethune

Related|

* Jim Crow laws
* Lynching in the United States
* Plessy v. Ferguson
* Separate but equal
* Buchanan v. Warley
* Hocutt v. Wilson
* Sweatt v. Painter
* Hernandez v. Texas
* Loving v. Virginia
* African-American women in the movement
* Fifth Circuit Four
* 16th Street Baptist Church
* Kelly Ingram Park
* A.G. Gaston Motel
* Bethel Baptist Church
* Brown Chapel
* Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
* Holt Street Baptist Church
* Edmund Pettus Bridge
* March on Washington Movement
* African-American churches attacked
* List of lynching victims in the United States
* Freedom Schools
* Freedom songs
* Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
* "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
* Voter Education Project
* 1960s counterculture
* African American founding fathers of the United States
* Eyes on the Prize

Legacy|

* In popular culture
* Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
* Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
* Civil Rights Memorial
* Civil Rights Movement Archive
* Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
* Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
* Freedom Rides Museum
* Freedom Riders National Monument
* King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
* Martin Luther King Jr. Day
* Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
* other King memorials
* Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
* National Civil Rights Museum
* National Voting Rights Museum
* St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument

Noted
historians|

* Taylor Branch
* Clayborne Carson
* John Dittmer
* Michael Eric Dyson
* Chuck Fager
* Adam Fairclough
* David Garrow
* David Halberstam
* Vincent Harding
* Steven F. Lawson
* Doug McAdam
* Diane McWhorter
* Charles M. Payne
* Thomas E. Ricks
* Timothy Tyson
* Akinyele Umoja
* Movement photographers

Civil rights movement portal

Authority control databases

International|

* FAST
* ISNI
* VIAF

National|

* France
* BnF data
* Germany
* Israel
* United States

Artists|

* Museum of Modern Art
* Photographers' Identities
* RKD Artists
* ULAN

Other|

* SNAC
* IdRef

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