Let Us March On: Lee Friedlander and the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom

This exhibition presents photographer Lee Friedlander’s images of the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, a critical yet generally neglected moment in American civil rights history. 

On May 17, 1957—the third anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, which outlawed segregation in public schools—thousands of activists, including many leaders from religious, social, educational, labor, and political spheres - united in front of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D.C. At this first large-scale gathering of African Americans on the National Mall, an event that was a forerunner of the 1963 March on Washington at which Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famed “I Have a Dream” speech, protestors called on federal authorities to enforce desegregation, support voting rights, and combat racial violence. Friedlander photographed many of the illustrious figures who attended or spoke at the march, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, Mahalia Jackson, and Harry Belafonte, and he wove among the demonstrators on the ground to capture the energy and expressions of the day.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the work of three contemporary artists—Sheila Pree Bright, Whitney Curtis, and Nancy Musinguzi—will be shown in the Stone Gallery and Annex. Centering around present-day social justice movements, the photography of Bright, Curtis, and Musinguzi builds bridges between current events, the historic moment of the Prayer Pilgrimage, and Friedlander’s iconic images.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.