Mississippi Eyes: The Story and Photography of the Southern Documentary Project

Mississippi Eyes is the chronicle of the events and the powerful witness of five young photographers in The Southern Documentary Project, working during the pivotal summer of 1964 in the segregated South. Together they captured the sometimes violent, sometimes miraculous process of social change as segregation resisted then gave way to a new beginning toward social justice. With 160 black-and-white photographs, this chronicle begins in the winter mud of the Mississippi Delta and ends in Atlantic City's convention hall as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation challenged the official Mississippi delegates to the National Democratic Convention. The Southern Documentary Project was the brainchild of Matt Herron, a budding photojournalist who had moved with his family to Mississippi in 1963 to work in civil rights and shoot picture stories for Life, Look, and the Saturday Evening Post. Drawing on advice from his friend, the noted documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, he pu