In a weapons shakedown was a Negro arrested today during attempts to register to vote in Selma, Alabama. He and others arrested failed to heed police orders to move from in front of the courthouse and line up in a side alley, January 1965

1965

In a weapons shakedown was a Negro arrested today during attempts to register to vote in Selma, Alabama. He and others arrested failed to heed police orders to move from in front of the courthouse and line up in a side alley, January 1965, 1965. America. Gelatin silver print, wirephoto; image: 18.9 x 15.9 cm (7 7/16 x 6 1/4 in.); paper: 18.9 x 15.9 cm (7 7/16 x 6 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg 2021.27 Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination based on race in voting, Black residents in southern states were being denied access to the ballot box. This unidentified photographer used traditional artistic tools such as composition and viewpoint to communicate his feelings about this incident. The image channels symmetry and centrality to identify and imprison the protagonist, who is wedged between two cars which prophesy his incarceration. Blacks efforts to register to vote in Alabama in 1965 were met with resistance, arrest, and sometimes violence.