Eli Reed Book

While I've written about many photographic catalogs and collections, but this title seems particularly appropriate in this 50th anniversary year of the Freedom Riders’ initial forays into the South; the foreword by Julian Bond, whom I saw just last night on CNN discussing Obama and Black Liberation Theology--i.e. Rev. Jeremiah Wright--offers a beautifully written and wrenching foreword, and as for other recommendations, who am I to argue with what follows, especially after having learned some of the more amusingly determined aspects of Congressman Lewis's character in Endesha Ida Mae Holland's memoir ()?

A not “In the summer of 1962, Danny Lyon packed a Nikon Reflex and an old Leica in an army bag and hitchhiked south. Within a week he was in jail in Albany, Georgia, looking through the bars at another prisoner, Martin Luther King, Jr. Lyon soon became the first staff photographer for the Atlanta-based Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which already had a reputation as one of the most committed and confrontational groups fighting for civil rights.

"This young white New Yorker came South with a camera and a keen eye for history. And he used these simple, elegant gifts to capture the story of one of the most inspiring periods in America’s twentieth century."
- US Congressman, John Lewis