A new exhibition that showcases photographs and documents from two watershed events during the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement: the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965.
While both initiatives were systematically thwarted, not only by white mobs, but also by state and local officials and police, the images and accounts of the violent receptions these peaceful protestors received ultimately swayed public sentiment, and helped with the passage of an order in September 1961 by the Interstate Commerce Commission to desegregate travel facilities, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The materials in “Nobody Turn Us Around: The Freedom Rides and Selma to Montgomery Marches– Selections from the John Doar Papers” were selected from the papers of John Doar, Class of 1944, who prosecuted discrimination and segregation cases for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department in the 1960s. The papers are housed at Mudd Manuscript Library.
The objects hint at how the Justice Department—as well as the executive branch and the FBI—were watching and reacting to the direct actions of riders and marchers like John Lewis, James Farmer, Diane Nash, Hosea Williams, Ralph Abernathy and King. As it turns out, the world was watching too.
Mon - Fri 9am - 4:45pm
Sat & Sun CLOSED
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
Princeton University Library
One Washington Road
Princeton, NJ
40.342932024198, -74.65509005
Nobody Turn Us Around: The Freedom Rides and Selma to Montgomery Marches- Selections from the John Doar Papers
