Episode Details

In March 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led an historic march of 25,000 people from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol of Montgomery. It was a pivotal event in the civil rights movement's campaign for voting rights, and its defiance of violent police tactics drew students and civil rights supporters from throughout the country. Stephen Somerstein, a photographer for a student newspaper at City College of New York, journeyed to Alabama to cover the march, traveling by bus with several dozen fellow students. He documented the march from its tense inception in Selma to King's triumphant and historic speech on the steps of the Alabama capitol five days and 54 miles later. In 2014, this presentation of Somerstein's vintage black and white photography, adapted by cuny.edu video editor Beethoven Bong, won a New York Emmy Award for outstanding historical/cultural program feature. In 2015, The New-York Historical Society presented an expansive exhibit of Somerstein's images to commemorate the 50th anniv.

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