How Will We Remember the Protests?
On May 3, 1963, 15-year-old Walter Gadsden was skipping school when he became the center of national news. Gadsden was walking around Birmingham, Alabama—then the most segregated city in the United States—when his curiosity drew him near the crowds of a protest organized by Martin Luther King Jr. As Gadsden watched the demonstrations, a K-9 lunged at him and the dog’s corresponding officer clutched the teenager by his shirt. The photographer Bill Hudson , depicting Gadsden looking down blankly at the German shepherd, the teen a vulnerable recipient of the violence set upon him. The image would become one of the most iconic photos of the civil-rights movement, with Gadsden emerging as an unwitting emblem of racial injustice. It was used as a political symbol to help Black leaders gain attention for their cause, turning eyes to
