Marching West

In May 1963, following a long history of local activism, Los Angeles was the site of the Freedom Rally, the largest civil rights demonstration in the city to date. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke before a crowd of nearly forty thousand at Wrigley Field. He addressed the question of how Angelenos could contribute to the civil rights movement: The most important thing that you can do is to set Los Angeles free, because you have segregation and discrimination here, and police brutality. In Marching West, authors Karin L. Stanford and Mark Speltz tell dynamic stories from the civil rights era in Los Angeles and explore how photography played an integral role in advancing the fight for Black equality. The extraordinary photographs in this book reveal the ties between the local and national movements and document the protests and activism of Western coalitions, religious leaders, and Hollywood stars. With stunning images from the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center and other Southern California collectionsincluding prints by Harry Adams, Vera Jackson, and Charles Williamsthis unprecedented volume memorializes the struggle for civil rights in Los Angeles.