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Sarah Linesch slinesch@nd.edu Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric, Section 13 Dr. Erin Dietel-McLaughlin 3 December 2013

Charles Moore Police Dogs Attack Protestors Alabama Fire Department Aims High-Pressure Water Hoses at Civil Rights Demonstrators 1963 Birmingham, Alabama

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The Civil Rights Movement in early 1960s America was a time of injustice and chaos as African Americans protested for equal rights and desegregation. Charles Moore captured this turmoil visually through his photographs taken during the Birmingham protests in May of 1963. These photos first appeared in Life magazine and have now become some of the most reproduced photographs from this time period. The Snite Museum at the University of Notre Dame displayed five of these photographs, two of which will be the focus of this rhetorical analysis. In the first, an African American man is shown surrounded by police officers as he is attacked by police dogs; in the second, three African American teenagers are huddled against a brick wall as they are sprayed with a fire hose. By photographing these scenes, Charles Moore illustrates the injustices that African Americans endured in order to increase support for the Civil Rights movement. Charles Moores photographs are successful in creating support for the Civil Rights movement and equal rights because they draw an emotional response from the viewer through camera placement and editing techniques. Moore establishes an emotional connection between viewer and victim by creating immediacy through his camera placement. In the article Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation, media scholars J. David Bolter and Richard A. Grusin define immediacy as a medium whose purpose is to disappear (21). In the photograph of the man being attacked by the police dogs, Moore captures the scene from a distance and at a lower angle, so that the man being attacked is not the sole focus of the photograph. By removing the noticeable presence of a camera from the photographs, the viewer is placed at the scene as if experiencing the event firsthand. The photograph is taken from the perspective of a person watching these events on the street, thereby remov[ing] the artist as an agent who [stands] between the viewer and the reality

Linesch 3 of the image (Bolter and Grusin 26). This connection between the viewer and the victim draws a larger emotional response from the viewer because he or she is placed at the scene of this injustice and is able to share in some of the emotions the victim feels. Immediacy increases the rhetorical appeal of the photograph by making the events real to the viewer, instead of just a photograph, therefore drawing a greater emotional response. Moore uses framing and composition techniques to focus the viewers attention on the emotions of the victims, thereby giving viewers a new, empathetic perspective of the Civil Rights movement. In the photo of the three African American teenagers being sprayed with a fire hose, Moore uses framing techniques to cut the attacker out of the photo. This technique centers the photograph on the teenagers, thereby immediately drawing the viewers attention to the teenagers emotions. Although the identity of the attacker is unknown, many people assume the attacker is a policeman or fire fighter. By removing the attacker, the viewers attention is focused solely on the teenagers emotions and not on the injustices being invoked those who are seen as heroes. Moore chose to include the stream of the fire hose in the photograph to portray the power of the water being shot at the teenagers and the pain the water pressure causes. Judith Lancionis The Rhetoric of the Frame states that the camera work allows viewers to join in the mental exercise of sifting historical evidence (Husler 23, quoted in Lancioni 108). Through Moores camera work, the viewer observes this historical event with a different perspective that focuses on the victims emotions as opposed to the actions, so the viewer gains a new insight to the Civil Rights movement. By creating a new perspective of this historical event, Moores photographs succeed in allowing the viewer to connect to the victims in the photos because human emotions have been connected to these historical events.

Linesch 4 Charles Moores photographs were a major contribution to the Civil Rights movement because his camera techniques focused on the human emotions of the protestors, thereby invoking greater sympathy from viewers and increased support for equal rights. Although the Civil Rights movement ended about fifty years ago, the photos are still viewed today and still possess rhetorical qualities. The article that accompanied the original photos in Life magazine writes, if the Negros themselves had written the script, they could hardly have asked for greater help for their cause (Durham 29). This article reflects a common view during the time that police brutality was beneficial because it added momentum to the Civil Rights movement; a viewpoint that differs greatly from that of modern viewers who are horrified by the injustices the protesters endured. Judith Lancioni writes that audiences assign meaning to a visual text by draw[ing] on their own life experiences as well as on prior aesthetic and rhetorical experiences (Lancioni 109). Viewers in 1963 grew up with segregation and therefore were not as shocked by police brutality as modern day viewers are, because police brutality and segregation are not common in the modern time period. The purpose of the photos in 1963 was to show the injustices that the African American community faced in order to persuade viewers to support the Civil Rights movement. The rhetoric of these photos has evolved since this time, with the purpose now being to persuade viewers to fight racism that still exists in present day America. Overall, Moore is successful in persuading viewers that racism is wrong because these photographs remind viewers of how violent and prejudice racism can be, and encourage viewers to fight racism in their own daily lives.

Linesch 5 Works Cited Bolter, J. David, and Richard A. Grusin. "Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation." Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1999. 20-50. Print. Durham, Michael. "They Fight a Fire That Won't Go Out." Life 17 May 1963: 26-30. Print. Lancioni, Judith. "The Rhetoric of the Frame." 2008. Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication and American Culture. N.p.: SAGE Publications, n.d. 105-15. Print.