June 14: Your lens to the interne t's most powerful photographs. 📸

June 14: Week in Photography

Your lens to the internet's most powerful photographs.

📸 MOST POWERFUL PHOTO OF THE WEEK 📸

David J. Phillip-Pool / Getty Images

This past week, George Floyd was remembered at an emotional memorial service in Houston, where people turned out by the thousands to pay their respects. In this powerful image, Roxie Washington leans over to comfort Gianna, her daughter with Floyd, during his service at the Fountain of Praise church on June 9.

The picture offers a heartbreaking reminder of the family that Floyd leaves behind and the daughter who must now begin the painful processes of moving forward without her father by her side.

📸For Your 👀 Only:

NYPL CURATOR MICHAEL MERY ON CIVIL RIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHY

Powerful images captured during recent demonstrations show how people have organized and taken to the streets en masse to raise their voices against racial injustice. These photos often recall the iconic imagery of the civil rights era — the historic pictures that have come to define the struggle of previous generations who fought for the progress that we see today.

Here, Michael Mery, the acting curator for prints and photographs at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, speaks with BuzzFeed News about pictures from the civil rights era in their collections and helps to contextualize the history of photography and its influence in advancing racial equality in the US.

Michael Mery: Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, African Americans, who had served in the armed forces fighting dictatorships overseas and on the home front as civilian war workers, continued to confront racism in America, one that imposed segregationist Jim Crow laws in the South, institutional racism in the North, and the ongoing horror of lynchings of Black citizens by lawless white mobs.

CORE demonstrators being arrested outside segregated movie theater showing "Goliath and the Dragon," at unidentified location, ca. 1960.

Beginning in the late 1940s, and further motivated by the brutal murder of Black teenager Emmett Till and the beginnings of the Montgomery bus boycott in the mid-1950s, African Americans, led by civil rights and religious leaders, began organizing marches, boycotts, rallies, and peaceful acts of civil disobedience in order to expose and demand an end to discrimination in housing, job opportunities, and education; the right to vote; equal access to public accommodations; and the protection of their civil liberties.

Photography became an integral part of documenting and publicizing the civil rights movement, as photographers, both white and significantly African American, embraced the movement. Working as photojournalists, photo documentarians, and freelancers on assignment, they would produce work that would appear in both the mainstream press and Black-owned publications, bringing the struggle into the consciousness of the average American.

Activist Daisy Bates picketing with placard: "Jailing our youth will not solve the problem in Little Rock. We are only asking for full citizenship rights."

The holdings of the Schomburg Center’s Photographs and Prints Division include a number of collections and portfolios by various photographers that reflect this period from the 1940s to the 1960s. Among these include Gordon Parks, whose 1956 photo essay for Life Magazine, “Segregation Story,” depicts the life of a Black family and their community in Jim Crow Alabama; Robert L. Haggins, who photographed the life and activities of Nation of Islam spokesperson and civil rights leader Malcolm X from the early to mid-1960s; and Robert A. Sengstacke, the Chicago-based photographer who documented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. along the route of the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Other civil rights era photographers include Moneta Sleet Jr., Ben Fernandez, Laurence Henry, Charles Moore, and Ernest Withers, among others. We also have a robust demonstrations collection, which contains views of civil right activists organizing, marching, picketing, and staging sit-ins against discrimination in housing, education, business, and the military, as well as lynching and Jim Crow, during the 1940s to 1960s.

A group of children carrying sign: "No Child is Free Until ALL are Free," circa late 1950s.

While valued as historical artifacts, civil rights photography also records for posterity how protests, rallies, and acts of civil disobedience can influence change in public policy, and bring a sense of justice to those who have been wronged. At the present time, as civil liberties, economic parity, social equality, and trust in law enforcement have been eroding for persons of African descent in the United States, civil rights photography will hopefully contribute to the return to activism, organization, and taking the streets again.

📸THE WEEK'S PHOTO STORIES FROM BUZZFEED NEWS 📸

Thousands paid their respects this past week in Houston at George Floyd's memorial to honor the man whose death sparked outrage against racial injustice in the US. Our first photo story brings together emotional moments from the ceremony that capture the love and loss felt by all those family and friends who knew him best. Next, we take to the streets with visuals that capture the sheer scale of new protests sweeping cities and towns across the US. Our last story spans the globe to show how international communities are marching in solidarity under the Black Lives Matter banner.

Find more of the week's best photo stories here.

POWERFUL MOMENTS FROM GEORGE FLOYD'S MEMORIAL IN HOUSTON

David J. Phillip / AP

Thousands of people paid their respects ahead of Floyd's burial in Houston.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS: THE SHEER SCALE OF THE PROTESTS

Natasha Moustache / Getty Images

Across major cities and small towns, people turned out en masse to demonstrate against the police killing of George Floyd and to call for change in the US.

MARCHING IN SOLIDARITY: BLM PROTESTS AROUND THE WORLD

Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

The message of Black Lives Matter is resonating around the globe as demonstrators march in solidarity with protesters in the US.

📸SOME HOPE 📸

Delil Soujeiman / AFP via Getty Images

Nope — this is not a behind-the-scenes still from Game of Thrones. These three wolf cubs were found abandoned by their mom in the forests near Van, Turkey, and later referred to the National Parks branch office. Here, these three little cuties are shown healthy and happy at the Gaziantep Zoo on June 11.

"That's it from us this time — see you next week!" —Gabriel and Kate

📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by the News Photo team. Gabriel Sanchez is the photo essay editor based in New York and loves cats. Kate Bubacz is the photo director based in New York and loves dogs. You can always reach us here.
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