At a recent fund raiser for Young People’s Project, civil rights movement leaders Bob Moses and Charles E. Cobb, Jr. received copies of Critical Focus, the Black and White Photographs of Harvey Wilson Richards (Estuary Press, 1987) and this photograph was taken. Estuary Press has made Critical Focus, by Paul Richards, available to the Zinn Education Project for free use by teachers. Bob Moses and Charles E. Cobb, Jr. appear in Harvey Richards’ films made in Mississippi in 1963 and 1964 (We’ll Never Turn Back and Dream Deferred).
How Harvey met Bob Moses and Charles E. Cobb, Jr.
Below are photos taken by Harvey Richards in 1963 in Mississippi. The photo of Charlie E. Cobb, Jr., is a screen grab from “We’ll Never Turn Back“. Bob Moses appears in “Dream Deferred” made in 1964. Harvey Richards made two trips to Mississippi in those dangerous years in his station wagon with California license plates on the car, making him an easy target for hostile segregationists who might see him. He stayed in motels in Memphis, Tennessee, during the filming, driving into the delta in the early morning hours to meet with Amzie Moore and other civil rights movement leaders like Bob Moses and Charlie Cobb. He drove on back roads on pre-arranged routes into rural areas to farm houses where look outs were posted during the filming sessions. Filming usually took place inside these farm houses with the windows covered. By dawn, Harvey was packed up and headed out of the delta. The great danger of violence from segregationists and police made it necessary to film the voices of the share croppers and civil rights movement leaders in clandestine conditions.
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