For Americans, it’s more important than ever to remember and reflect on our past and the history that was made throughout the South in the ’50s and ’60s. From Birmingham to Selma, to Greensboro and Little Rock, civil rights pioneers made great strides towards racial equality during the Civil Rights Movement. With that movement came a wave of extraordinary images that helped shape history, including some of the most influential photographs of the 20th century.
About a year ago, Art Meripol was commissioned by Luckie & Co. and the Alabama Tourism Department to shoot a series of photographs for use in the Alabama Civil Rights Trail presentation book. Lucky & Co. art director Miles Wright researched iconic images from the ’50s and ’60s and then worked with Art to recreate the “exact” frame and composition as the landmark looks today. The books were printed as a 15×10″ horizontal and Art’s contemporary images ran full-bleed on the right side page, with the historic shot overlaid on the left half of the page. With that approach, you can see the historic image and Art’s photo side-by-side in one glance. Then, when the half-page is turned, Art’s whole frame is revealed.
The book was presented to leaders at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in an effort to receive global classification as a UNESCO World Heritage site. After seeing the book, the board was impressed and awarded a “Memory of the World” designation, but thought the locations were too limited in scope. With that in mind, Art and Miles got back to work this spring and photographed eight additional locations, including the Brown V. Board of Education site in Topeka, Kansas and the Lincoln Memorial. The new book was finished earlier this month and will be presented to UNESCO again in the coming weeks.
Although we often see photos of the past set in the present (Dear Photograph, anyone?), this project’s unique, significant purpose and outstanding execution makes it stand out in the crowd. For Art, making sure the image matched up perfectly with its counterpart was a difficult, but welcome, task:
It was extremely challenging and fun to exactly match old images. I had to figure out the exact spot where the photographer shot (likely with a speed graphic) and the lens used … even how tall he or she was. We were meticulous in aligning every touchstone we could. Fortunately most scenes had not changed all that much. One challenge was finding meaningful historic shots that still offered telling visuals when adding information to the right of the photographer’s historic shot.
While only 30 copies were made of the initial book, Art hopes more of the second version will be printed so it can be widely circulated and reach a broader audience. He also hopes that UNESCO approves the trail as a World Heritage Site—of which there are only about 1,000 in the world.
As for what I learned? I learned that social and civil changes can arise anywhere people are willing to stand up for beliefs. The chance to travel to so many places where America changed in so short a time made a deep impression on me … the chance to stand where so much history happened. It was easy to imagine the fear, but harder to imagine the courage it took for people to march into abuse and beatings at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, or the Woolworth lunch counter where the first sit-ins happened in Greensboro NC, all hoping to affect change.