The powerful life story and photography of an esteemed Black photojournalist Cecil Williams is one of the few Southern Black photojournalists of the civil rights movement. Born and raised in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Williams worked at the center of emerging twentieth-century civil rights activism in the state, and his assignments often exposed him to violence perpetrated by White law officials and ordinary citizens. Williams's story is the story of the civil rights era. Williams and award-winning journalist Claudia Smith Brinson combine forces in Injustice in Focus: The Civil Rights Photography of Cecil Williams. Together they document civil rights activism in the 1940s through the 1960s in South Carolina. Williams was there, in South Carolina, to witness and document pivotal movements such as then-NAACP legal counsel Thurgood Marshall's arrival in Charleston to argue the landmark case Briggs v. Elliott and the aftermath of the infamous Orangeburg Massacre. Featuring eighty stunning photographs accompanied by Brinson's rich research, interviews, and prose, Injustice in Focus offers a firsthand account of South Carolina's fight for civil rights and describes Williams's life behind the camera as a documentarian of the civil rights movement.

The powerful life story and photography of an esteemed Black photojournalist from Orangeburg, South Carolina Cecil Williams is one of the few Southern Black photojournalists of the civil rights movement. Born and raised in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Williams worked at the center of emerging twentieth-century civil rights activism in the state, and his assignments often exposed him to White violence perpetrated by law officials and ordinary citizens. Williams's story is the story of the civil rights era. Williams and about award-winning journalist Claudia Smith Brinson combine forces in Injustice in Focus: The Civil Rights Photography of Cecil Williams. Together they document civil rights activism in the 1940s through the 1960s in South Carolina. Williams was there, in South Carolina, to witness and document pivotal movements such as then-NAACP legal counsel Thurgood Marshall's arrival in Charleston to argue the landmark case Briggs v. Elliott and the aftermath of the infamous Orangeburg Massacre. Featuring eighty stunning photographs accompanied by Brinson's rich research, interviews, and prose, Injustice in Focus offers a firsthand account of South Carolina's fight for civil rights and describes Williams's life behind the camera as a documentarian of the civil rights movement.

"This is a photographic journey back into the legally segregated world in which I grew up. A world entirely shaped by race and color. This book is an eyewitness account of many sociological events having a direct impact on my life. These events also affected the lives of millions of blacks and whites, especially those who lived in the Deep South. My pictures most often salute the unknown people who put their lives on the line to confront and change a system of segregation and racism. At a time when our nation still struggles with the issue of race, hopefully this book will promote racial harmony and the need for acceptance shared by all people, despite their racial, ethnic, and religious heritage".

The 1949 Briggs vs. Elliot case that originated in Clarendon County and the Orangeburg selective buying campaign were both crucial events in the creation of the civil rights movement that changed the course of United States history. Out-of-the-Box in Dixie is the story of these heroic people whose quest for equality, sacrifices and contributions should not be forgotten. It was the Briggs vs. Elliot case that caused the national office of the NAACP to redirect its approach from suing for "separate but equal" facilities to challenging segregation as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court handed down the decision that segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This publication is dedicated to documenting the unobtrusive heroism and actions of many people who have been inadequately represented in interpretive discussion relative to desegregation and equality in America.

The modern civil rights movement rapidly came to prominence after World War II, coalescing around the demand to repeal Jim Crow laws and promote a vision of a just, multiracial society. The vast majority of civil rights organizations practiced assertive nonviolence to meet these goals. Nevertheless, opponents often met their activism with violence and intimidation. Like those who marched, protested, and organized for civil rights and social justice, photojournalists put themselves in great danger. The Briscoe Center for American History’s exhibit, Struggle for Justice: Four Decades of Civil Rights Photography, which was displayed on the University of Texas at Austin campus, celebrated the legacy of those photographers. The material walked visitors through much of the civil rights era and provided a lesson both inspiring and challenging: that social progress is possible when one values it above personal comfort and safety. Now in book form, Struggle for Justice honors the photographers who were willing to put their privilege on the line to document the discrimination of others and, by doing so, helped to galvanize public support for the civil rights movement.

In this pioneering study of the long and arduous struggle for civil rights in South Carolina, longtime journalist Claudia Smith Brinson details the lynchings, beatings, bombings, cross burnings, death threats, arson, and venomous hatred that black South Carolinians endured—as well as the astonishing courage, devotion, dignity, and compassion of those who risked their lives for equality. Through extensive research and interviews with more than one hundred fifty civil rights activists, many of whom had never shared their stories with anyone, Brinson chronicles twenty pivotal years of petitioning, preaching, picketing, boycotting, marching, and holding sit-ins. Participants' use of nonviolent direct action altered the landscape of civil rights in South Carolina and reverberated throughout the South. These firsthand accounts include those of the unsung petitioners who risked their lives by supporting Summerton's Briggs v. Elliot, a lawsuit that led to the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision; the thousands of students who were arrested and jailed in 1960 for protests in Rock Hill, Orangeburg, Denmark, Columbia, and Sumter; and the black female employees and leaders who defied a governor and his armed troops during the 1969 hospital strike in Charleston. Brinson also highlights contributions made by remarkable but lesser-known activists, including James M. Hinton Sr., president of the South Carolina Conference of Branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Thomas W. Gaither, Congress of Racial Equality field secretary and scout for the Freedom Rides; Charles F. McDew, a South Carolina State College student and co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and Mary Moultrie, grassroots leader of the 1969 hospital workers' strike. These intimate stories of courage and conviction, both heartbreaking and inspiring, shine a light on the progress achieved by nonviolent civil rights activists while also revealing white South Carolinians' often violent resistance to change. Although significant racial disparities remain, the sacrifices of these brave men and women produced real progress—and hope for the future.

Significant pictures of Civil rights movement in the South from 1958 to 1965 photographed by Charles Moore.