Wide Open: The street near Brown Chapel, right background, at Selma, Alabama is open to normal traffic today. For days the area was sealed off by hundreds of police who faced demonstrators at a barricade in the foreground. The demonstrators, attempting to march to the courthouse for a memorial service for the Reverend James Reeb, were permitted to march yesterday. There were no police in the area today, March 16, 1965

1965

Wide Open: The street near Brown Chapel, right background, at Selma, Alabama is open to normal traffic today. For days the area was sealed off by hundreds of police who faced demonstrators at a barricade in the foreground. The demonstrators, attempting to march to the courthouse for a memorial service for the Reverend James Reeb, were permitted to march yesterday. There were no police in the area today, March 16, 1965, 1965. America. Gelatin silver print, wirephoto; image: 16.6 x 22 cm (6 9/16 x 8 11/16 in.); paper: 20.6 x 25.3 cm (8 1/8 x 9 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg 2021.28 For days this street had been packed with police. They were restraining demonstrators from marching to a memorial service for their fellow protestor, a minister who had been murdered by white segregationists. The protesters were finally allowed to march, leaving the street deserted except for an ominous shadow. For those who knew the story, this dark blot might symbolize the blood of the fallen minister, or a blot of shame on the town for its treatment of the protestors. Here the lack of action tells a significant tale of one small step in the struggle to attain equal voting rights for Black people in the South in 1965.