First published 2021
Photographer William Abranowicz travels through the American South, capturing places where the civil rights movement unfolded. His camera finds the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where peaceful marchers faced police violence on Bloody Sunday in 1965. He photographs locations tied to Rosa Parks and Harry Belafonte, visits the barn where Emmett Till was murdered, and documents landscapes that witnessed both brutality and heroism. Abranowicz notices how little Selma has changed since Walker Evans photographed it in the 1930s. As voter suppression efforts resurface across the nation, these images reveal stories embedded in ordinary American places. The photographs connect past struggles to present threats, showing how the fight for voting rights continues. Through his lens, Abranowicz uncovers the living legacy of sacrifice and redemption that shaped American democracy.
Genres: african-american, 21st-century, photography, social-justice, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: documentary, social-commentary
Setting: American South, Selma, Edmund Pettus Bridge
Period: 1930s, 1965, Present Day
200 pages · Hardcover · University of Texas Press
Content warnings: racism, violence