Freedom March 1963 Video by Harvey Richards

1963, 10 min., black/white

San Francisco Freedom March in Support of Civil Rights in Birmingham, Alabama

Freedom March focuses on the San Francisco protest march of May 26, 1963, sponsored by Bay Area Black churches and the labor movement in support of civil rights and the Birmingham Campaign against segregation led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This march was the first community wide, racially integrated march against racial segregation in the United States since the Civil War. Fifteen thousand people marched in response to a call by San Francisco religious groups and labor organizations.  The film shows the march and the rally with the Rev. Bernard Lee of the SCLC and others. Speakers called for freedom in Birmingham and equality in San Francisco.

San Francisco’s Freedom March

Freedom March up Market Street, 1963
Freedom March Up Market Street. Screen shot from Freedom March by Harvey Richards

Harvey Richards filmed this march just after he had returned from Mississippi where he had filmed the voter registration activists that appear in his film We’ll Never Turn Back.  This march occurred just four months before the bombing of the Birmingham, Alabama, 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four girls and shocked the nation.

MEDIA – For photos & interviews: Paul Richards (510) 967 5577; paulrichards@estuarypress.com

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