By SPEAKIN’ OUT NEWS
MONTGOMERY — Seven decades after Rosa Parks helped ignite the Civil Rights Movement, newly released photographs are offering a deeper look at her activism and reconnecting Alabama communities to their own history.
The images, taken by the late Civil Rights photographer Matt Herron, show Parks participating in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march — a role often overshadowed by her famous refusal to give up her bus seat in 1955. Released this week to the Rosa Parks Museum, the never-before-seen photos highlight her continued involvement in the struggle for voting rights.
Museum director Donna Beisel said the images “show who Ms. Parks was, both as a person and as an activist,” underscoring that her work stretched far beyond the Bus Boycott. Parks is seen among the thousands who completed the 54-mile march that helped push Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Herron, who moved to Mississippi in 1963 after Medgar Evers’ assassination, spent years documenting the Civil Rights Movement. His widow, Jeannine Herron, said the newly surfaced photos were found on a contact sheet at Stanford University and never printed because they were blurry or included lesser-known individuals.
One of those individuals was Doris Wilson of Marion, Alabama, photographed at age 20 receiving medical care for blistered feet during the march. On Thursday, Wilson — now 80 — reunited with Dr. June Finer, the New York physician who cared for her along the route. The emotional moment came as the community viewed Herron’s rediscovered photos at Lincoln Normal School, a historic Black institution founded after the Civil War.
For others, the images provide long-awaited confirmation of family stories. Cheryl Gardner Davis of Lowndes County said photos of marchers camping on her childhood farm validate sacrifices her family endured, including threats and power outages. “It’s affirmation,” she said. “This actually happened, and people were there.”