To the Attack (Birmingham Protest), 3 May 1963. In April and May 1963, at the height of the American Civil Rights campaign, photographers converged on Birmingham, Alabama, where peaceful marchers faced police using truncheons, dogs, and fire hoses, led by the segregationist Sheriff ‘Bull’ Connor. Bill Hudson of AP captured the moment when an unresisting 15-year-old youth, Walter Gadsden, was seized by a policeman and savaged by his dog; a Coca-Cola sign appears in the background. Published next day in the New York Times, the picture caused a sensation; President Kennedy remarked that it made him ‘sick to his stomach’. It subsequently appeared in newspapers worldwide, was used in fund-raising propaganda, and eventually inspired a statue in Birmingham. Similar, even more dramatic images taken by Charles Moore (b. 1931) on 4 May formed the basis for works by Andy Warhol.
— Robin Lenman
Bibliography
- Goldberg, V., The Power of Photography: How Photographs Changed our Lives (1991)
