Magnum Photos Stands in ‘Solidarity’ With NAACP
The square print sale will donate half its proceeds to the NAACP.
Magnum Photos and Vogue are joining forces to financially aid the NAACP during a time of national political upheaval.
The sale, “Solidarity,” will donate 50% of its proceeds to the NAACP with the intention of providing political power and wellbeing to communities of color across the country. International photographers have produced a collection composed of over 100 photos that capture moments from the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the current Black Lives Matter movement.
Included in the collection is a black and white photograph by Bruce Davidson taken in 1965 at the protest march from Selma to Montgomery. The photo shows a young Black man staring into the camera lens wrapped in an American flag. Behind him is a priest and a sea of protestors holding signs.
More recently, a photograph taken this year by Richie Shazam shows a young woman at a protest wearing a pink cowboy hat that reads “tell your friends to pull up.” Shazam took this photo while attending the Black Trans Lives Matter March in Brooklyn with the intent of standing against violence.
“My work connects me to who I am, where I come from, and most of all those around me,” Shazam writes. “This year we are called upon to stand up and against the violence and hate thrust onto so many Black and brown bodies.”
Magnum Photos was started in 1947 following the Second World War. Photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger and David Seymour founded the agency to showcase the importance of journalism, photography and storytelling. Magnum’s collection houses thousands of photographs that capture some of the most important moments in human history.
Photographer Bob Henriques includes a photo in the collection from the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957. Crowds stand in front of the reflection pool shadowed by the Washington Monument. Attendees seemingly look upward at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..
“Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress,” MLK said.
All the prints are museum quality and come with a statement by the photographer or estate who possesses the photo. Vogue and Magnum’s photographs will be on sale until August 2, 6:00 p.m. EST.