"Dog Bites Man" is News, Why Photography Matters

 Photographer Charles Moore passed away on March 11, 2010. He is noted for his photographic work documenting the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. Many readers may not recognize the name of Charles Moore, but his photographs found a nationwide audience in Life Magazine, and are credited in helping hasten the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is hard to imagine now in our multichannel media wonderland what an impact an 11 page photo essay in Life Magazine could have in the United States. With circulation topping 13 million, it is estimated that half the adult population, including the political leaders of the country read Life Magazine. According to noted historian Arthur Schlesinger, “The photographs of Bull Connor's police dogs lunging at the marchers in Birmingham did as much as anything to transform the national mood and make legislation not just necessary, . . . but possible."


Charles Moore was born and raised in the south, and was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. While photographing the Civil Rights Movement, he was both beaten and arrested by supporters of segregation. Moore’s photographic style included the use of wide angle lenses that required him to get closer to the action than many of the other photographers. According to a March 2005 interview in The Montgomery Advertiser, Moore recalled some of the events of the “Bloody Sunday” riots in Birmingham during 1965. After witnessing a policeman club a black woman with a wooden baton Moore recalled “that was a moment that really made me angry that someone would club a woman…made me angry that people could treat other people like that. It was emotional. I thought it was important to photograph those police with dogs attacking people.”

Many of the landmarks of the civil rights movement were covered by Moore while under contract to the Black Star Publishing, Inc. In 1989 Moore received the first Kodak Crystal Eagle Award For Impact In Photojournalism. From the arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama in 1958 and James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi in 1962, to protests in Birmingham, Alabama and marches in Selma his photographic images form a road map of the Civil Rights Movement.