UNC Press - Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare

312 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 58 illus., notes, bibl., index

Cloth

ISBN 978-0-8078-3430-5

Published: February 2011

Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle

In Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare, Leigh Raiford argues that over the past one hundred years activists in the black freedom struggle have used photographic imagery both to gain political recognition and to develop a different visual vocabulary about black lives. Raiford analyzes why activists chose photography over other media, explores the doubts some individuals had about the strategies, and shows how photography became an increasingly effective, if complex, tool in representing black political interests.

Offering readings of the use of photography in the antilynching movement, the civil rights movement, and the black power movement, Raiford focuses on key transformations in technology, society, and politics to understand the evolution of photography's deployment in capturing white oppression, black resistance, and African American life. By putting photography at the center of the long African American freedom struggle, Raiford also explores how the recirculation of these indelible images in political campaigns and art exhibits both adds to and complicates our memory of the events.

About the Author

Leigh Raiford is associate professor of African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley

Reviews

"Examines the role photography played in three social movements--anti-lynching, civil rights and black power. . . . by, for example, challenging demeaning representations of black Americans as ignorant or unfit for citizenship."
--The Chronicle of Higher Education

This is a sophisticated study, well above the useful level for public libraries.It is a compelling work unlike anything else presently offered in the fields scholarship.
--Tennessee Libraries

"This beautifully written text will significantly shape how we can and will understand the visual culture of social movements in the United States. Raiford's scholarship is excellent."
--Shawn Michelle Smith, author of Photography on the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture

"Scholars and students of mass media and of black portraiture in popular culture would be well advised to mine this outstanding book's insights and techniques before proceeding with their own projects. Raiford's work is at the cutting edge of black cultural studies writing."
--William L. Van Deburg, University of Wisconsin-Madison