Jill Freedman: Resurrection City, 1968

In May of 1968, photographer Freedman documented the Poor People’s Campaign, a six-week protest in Washington, D.C., organized by the Southern Leadership Conference. This photographic essay, originally published in 1971 and reissued to mark the 50th anniversary of the protest, captures the significance of the event and lends it a contemporary context. The updated edition includes short essays by history professor John Edwin Mason and Aaron Bryant, curator of photography at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, both of which provide insight into the photographs and the protest itself, in which 3,000 people camped out on the National Mall from May 13 to June 24 in shacks made of plywood and canvas. In black-and-white photos, Freedman captures the mud and grime of the encampment. While there are signs of poverty throughout her photographs—an elderly woman wearing paper bags on her feet, a toothless man smiling at the camera—more striking is the sense of camaraderie among the residents, as seen in the photos of drum circles, kids wrestling with tire swings, groups of women sitting cross-legged on the lawn while singing and clapping their hands. This powerful work of documentary photography captures the momentum of the civil rights movement through one of its lesser known demonstrations. [em](Mar.) [/em]