Revisiting the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement through an Activist's Lens: A Documentary Photography Exhibit in Black and White

By Dr. Doris A. Derby

Dr. Derby is a ten-year veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and a working member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Her photographs provide an insider's view of the Movement and the people influenced by it. New exhibit to open March 1st, 2011 at the Atlanta City Hall, will recognize her exhibit.

Received a nomination for the 42nd NAACP Image Awards in the category of Outstanding Literary Work - Non-Fiction, 2011.
An unprecedented women's history of the Civil Rights Movement, from sit-ins to Black Power

In Hands on the Freedom Plow, fifty-two women--northern and southern, young and old, urban and rural, black, white, and Latina--share their courageous personal stories of working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement.

The testimonies gathered here present a sweeping personal history of SNCC: early sit-ins, voter registration campaigns, and Freedom Rides; the 1963 March on Washington, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the movements in Alabama and Maryland; and Black Power and antiwar activism. Since the women spent time in the Deep South, many also describe risking their lives through beatings and arrests and witnessing unspeakable violence. These intense stories depict women, many very young, dealing with extreme fear and finding the remarkablestrength to survive.

The women in SNCC acquired new skills, experienced personal growth, sustained one another, and even had fun in the midst of serious struggle. Readers are privy to their analyses of the Movement, its tactics, strategies, and underlying philosophies. The contributors revisit central debates of the struggle including the role of nonviolence and self-defense, the role of white people in a black-led movement, and the role of women within the Movement and the society at large.

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