Lost Civil Rights Era Photos Uncovered

Old photos of civil rights protests from the '50s/'60s taken, and concealed, by Birmingham News photographers were discovered by an intern there. The paper decided to print the photos now in a special series. These are iconic photos of a historical struggle that many in the media at that time hoped to keep hidden from the fragile eyes of Middle America...

AP: Ala. Paper Publishes Civil Rights Photos

Dozens of never before released photos from the civil rights era came to light this weekend after an intern discovered them buried in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News.

The photos had been in a box marked: "Keep. Do Not Sell." But at the time they were taken, the newspaper didn't want to draw attention to the racial discord of the 1950s and 1960s, news photographers from the period said.

"The editors thought if you didn't publish it, much of this would go away," said Ed Jones, 81, a photographer at The News from 1942 to 1987...

That's funny- That's the same attitude the Bush administration has toward dead soldiers coming home from Iraq! The more things change... you know the rest.

They have the photos online- here. Here is a sample:











Let's all remember that this was going on less than 50 years ago. It's still a work in progress, too. As for the uncovering of the hidden photos, Jane at Firedoglake finds similarity to the behavior of today's media- "[The photos] document the struggle of incredibly brave people with no money who banded together to fight a powerful elite that controlled the media and did everything possible to keep their message from getting through. But time has a way of unraveling those conspiracies, and history will judge journalists who currently collaborate with power to perpetuate war with lies that go unchallenged just as harshly as it did those who thought it was a good idea to stick that box of photos in a closet some forty years ago."

Agreed.