Civil Rights Photography Then and Now

On the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death, an exhibition at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art in 2018 pulled together some of the most powerful images of the Civil Rights Movement

“A Fire That No Water Could Put Out” derived its name from King’s “Mountaintop Speech,” his final address the day before his assassination on April 4, 1968, and included more than forty prints from the High’s collection of civil rights photography, both past and present. “We wanted to bring out classic iconic imagery and connect it to what’s going on today,” said the exhibition’s curator, Erin Nelson.