Seeing through Race

“Seeing Through Race is an indispensable and highly original account of how white Americans understood and remembered the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Berger shows us why photography was so central to civil rights, and his readings of iconic images are always penetrating and at times brilliant. His central argument, that whites wanted to be in charge of the movement, is complemented with rich insights on almost every page. It should be required reading for anyone interested in protest movements.”

—John Stauffer, Chair of the History of American Civilization and Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University



“The fervor of the 1960s civil rights movement may seem outdated by now, but terrible scenes enacted on the streets of Selma and Birmingham are preserved in the mass of surviving news photographs. Martin Berger argues that these pictures were never simple visual documents. By awakening the nation to the horrific violence of fire hoses and attack dogs, they defined what was meant by “civil rights movement.” Always engaging in its narrative as well as in its analytical and theoretical discourse, Seeing through Race is a stunning achievement both as history and as criticism.”

—Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Gray, Jr. Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Yale University