What's remarkable about photojournalist Leonard Freed's book "This Is the Day: The March on Washington" (Getty: $29.95), a photo essay documenting the historic Aug. 28, 1963, civil-rights march, is that it includes only one photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. A wide-angle shot of the crowd gathered at the base of the Lincoln Memorial shows a barely discernible King at the podium giving his celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech.
Freed's "focus was on seeing the event from multiple points of view, from students to clergy to the national park rangers," said Paul Farber, instructor of urban studies at the University of Pennsylvania who worked closely with the photographer's widow, Brigitte, to select 75 images from his archive of 500 black-and-white photos (Freed died in 2006). "He's really giving us a multi-perspective, a flurry of visual exchanges."
King's spirit is clearly present in Freed's close-up shots of marchers dressed in their Sunday best holding hands and singing "We Shall Overcome." Filled with emotion, individual faces reflect passion, hope and determination.
"What's spectacular is that he captured the ordinary people who were there, the neighbor next door, the people down the street," said civil rights leader Julian Bond, one of only eight students in a class taught by King at Morehouse College in Atlanta. "For someone who was there, I found them very compelling." In his foreword, Bond details the power struggles behind the scenes in planning such a momentous event. Sponsored by five civil rights organizations and led by labor leader A. Philip Randolph and activist Bayard Rustin, the peaceful demonstration focused on voting rights and the desegregation of schools, and eventually led to passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.