Marching West

Duringa 1963 speech to a crowd of nearly forty thousand at Wrigley Field in LosAngeles, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the question of how Angelenoscould contribute to the civil rights movement: “The most important thing thatyou can do is to set Los Angeles free, because you have segregation anddiscrimination here, and police brutality.”Marching West illuminates the dynamic historyof civil rights activism in Los Angeles and explores how the medium ofphotography both witnessed and advanced the fight for Black equality. Overone hundred images, some of which have never been previously published,reveal connections between the local and national movements and document theactions of Western coalitions, religious leaders, Hollywood stars, andconcerned citizens. Drawn fromthe Tom & Ethel Bradley Center at California State University, Northridge(CSUN), the Getty Research Institute, and other Southern Californiacollections—including prints by Harry Adams, HowardBingham, Charles Brittin, Vera Jackson, andCharles Williams—this unprecedented volume presents less familiar butessential stories about American progress toward social justice.