The Enemy Within: The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Enemy Pictures

Abstract

The 20 th century could be described as the one that gave birth to a new "civilization of the image." (Gusdorf 1960: 11). By using images in its nation-building efforts, the United States has been a forerunner through what François Brunet called "Amériqueimage", a huge picture-book in which photographs of the Civil Rights Movement have a dedicated slot at a time when television was becoming a mass media (Brunet & Kempf 2001). The best-known pictures of the Civil Rights Movement have thus become places of memory, iconic images testifying to the ultimate triumph of democracy.