Sat 6/13 @ 11:30-12:30
The Cleveland Print Room might seem like an unlikely place to be hosting a Zoom discussion of civil rights. But photography has long been a tool for exposing social ills and arousing the public to demand change, from the depression-era images of photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, to the indelible images of the Civil Rights movement in the south in the 1960s, to the powerful shots of our degraded environment being done by numerous photographers today.
The accompanying 2017 photo by Owen Rodemann is an example of how photographer can show people things they might not have been aware of. It shows the Sidaway Bridge, spanning the Kinsman neighborhood and Slavic Village, which was destroyed by a fire during the 1966 uprisings to block African-American access to Slavic Village. They tell us, “It remains a symbol of the mid-to-late twentieth century racism that separated these two Cleveland neighborhoods and a reminder that further action to dismantle racism must be taken. Rather than repair the bridge and keep it open to the public, the City of Cleveland elected instead to close it.”
CPR board member Vera Boggs is also the Ohio Civil Rights Commission regional director, who works on civil rights issues with youth as part of CPR’s education/photography programming. So she’ll be leading a discussion about what the OCRC is doing to help further civil rights in Ohio, and presumably, how much more needs to be done. The program is for all ages. Register at info@clevelandprintroom.com to receive the log-in information.