ABOUT THE PICTURES

During the civil rights movement of the sixties, Lee Morton took time from his occupation to work with the Council of Federated Organizations Mississippi Literacy Project. While in Mississippi, he worked closely with the members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The experience inspired him to do a computer art series of images depicting the courageous work of the youthful civil rights activists.

ABOUT THE STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was a political organization formed in 1960 by black college students in the United States. SNCC was organized to advance and coordinate the "sit-in movement" a protest technique that became prominent after 1960, when four young black men sat at a segregated "whites only" lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. SNCC was dedicated to overturning segregation by nonviolent direct action protest.

SNCC, led and staffed primarily by black students, was the vanguard of the civil rights movement during the sixties. SNCC organized voter registration campaigns throughout the South. Under the direction of SNCC field secretary Robert (Bob) Moses, SNCC created the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) in Mississippi, an umbrella council under which all organizations, churches, and activists could coordinate their efforts to end racial segregation in the state. In 1964 COFO organized the Freedom Summer, an effort to focus national attention on Mississippi's racism by registering black voters. Hundreds of young people went to the South that summer to help the effort, in spite of the bombings, burnings, and violence. Members of the Ku Klux Klan murdered three volunteer activists participating in the project-two whites and one black. SNCC also helped create the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which challenged the total control whites maintained over Mississippi's Democratic Party.

Between 1960 and 1970 SNCC shifted its primary function from coordination to agitation and then to the espousal of black power, a philosophy emphasizing racial dignity and black self-reliance and the use of violence as a legitimate means of self-defense. During that period, SNCC's brief but memorable history was graphically chronicled by poster images of black and white hands clasped (or the equal symbol), and then an upraised clenched fist, a ballot box, and finally a stalking Black Panther. The activists coined slogans to articulate the images: Equality! Freedom Now! One Man One Vote! Black Power!

About the Artist

Lee Jack Morton is a graphic designer, painter, art director and a web site architect. He was born in Detroit, Michigan and received his BFA from Wayne State University. He is the recipient of the New York Art Director's 1974 Illustrator of the year award, and the Outstanding Service Award from the National Council of Negro Women. He received the Communications Concepts' National Graphic Design Award of Excellence and is a subject of biographical record in the International Marquis Who's Who in the East, 26th Edition. Morton is retired from his job as Art Director for the city of Newark, New Jersey. He currently serves as Vice President and Art Director for Morton, James & Lee.

Text by Eric Morton

Eric Morton is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Fort Valley State University of Georgia. He is also a doctoral candidate in the Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture Program of the Philosophy Department, State University of New York at Binghamton. He received a BA with a major in English from the University of California Berkeley and an MA with a major in Philosophy from SUNY Binghamton. He studied African Philosophy and Religion at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University. As a former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, his dissertation, We All Be Free: the Philosophical World of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, is an experiential contribution to the history of the civil rights movement in America.

EXHIBITION FORMAT INSTRUCTION

The exhibition environment is divided into two spaces, with thumbnails of the exhibits at the left side of the screen. The images and text play in the center of the screen as you click on any of the thumbnail images at the side. The exhibition text accompanies the images. To return to this page, just click the last thumbnail and click the "back" arrow/botton that appears on the display screen.