Vehicles of Change
The ubiquity of the automobile transformed landscapes and architecture, stimulated the growth of tourism and its related industries (service stations, roadside restaurants, drive-ins, and roadside hotels and motels), connected rural and urban centers, and led to the creation of the highway system. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, approximately 78 percent of American households owned one or more motor vehicles in the 1960s; in the 1980s, this figure increased to 87 percent, with many American households owning more than one.
The automobile would also help fuel the historic changes that occurred throughout the country in the 20th century—a time of civil rights, women’s rights, anti-war protests, and loosened social mores and moral codes. The opportunities granted by the automobile freed individuals from confined geographic locations, homes, or prescribed roles. The empowering nature of the vehicle and its ability to foster a new type of self-expression is exemplified by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957)—a novel about a band of youths traveling the country by car and living off poetry, drugs, and jazz—which inspired a generation of individuals and artists to take to the roads.
Many Black Americans, who were oppressed by legally mandated and broadly condoned racial discrimination, identified transportation as a pivotal battleground in the struggle for freedom. Indeed, they fought transportational segregation in and out of the courts for half of the 19th century and most of the 20th century. Buses and cars were also used to stage boycotts (most famously, in Montgomery, Alabama from 1955–1956) and organize Freedom Rides to the South in 1961. In Savannah, activists were able to register an unprecedented number of Black Americans to vote in 1963 by offering free rides to register voters; this effort gave Black Savannahians powerful leverage in their fight to desegregate the city.
These photographs from Telfair Museums’ permanent collection not only testify to the centrality of the automobile in 20th-century American society; they also speak to the many ways in which vehicles helped usher transformational change, whether in the fight for civil rights or the desire for increased freedom, mobility, and new modes of self-expression.
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Robert Newman (American, Dates Unknown) Right Now!, c. 1963 Digitized microfilm reel, 28 minutes Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern Activists, HCLA 2907, Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania State University This documentary film captures the efforts of civil rights activists, such as Lester Hankerson, Henry Brownlee, Hosea Williams, and Benjamin Van Clark (shown at the end, speaking from a pulpit) to register Black voters in Savannah. It brings to life the scenes and gives voice to the individuals depicted in Frederick Baldwin’s photographs. The film was created with the support of the Southern Christian leadership Conference (SCLC), the Southern Regional Council Voter Education Project, and the Committee for Racial Justice. |
Civil Rights in Savannah
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, in and out of Savannah, was not an isolated historical episode. Rather, it was the culmination of centuries of struggle against brutality and systemic racism. The following timeline is a close look at the succession of events that led to the desegregation of the city of Savannah in 1963. As such, it omits several important moments that came before and after.
March 16, 1960
Three Black students named Carolyn Quilloin Coleman, Ernest Robinson, and Joan Tyson Hall are arrested after staging a peaceful sit-in inside a whites-only dining area in the Levy's Department Store. They were part of a larger group of students who walked into Broughton Street businesses and asked for service at lunch counters to protest segregation.
This ignited an organized movement led by Westley Wallace Law, head of Savannah’s NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). They demanded desegregation of facilities, use of courtesy titles (Mr., Mrs., Miss, instead of the derogatory “boy” or “girl”), and the hiring of Black clerks and managers in retail. The first sit-ins turned into “The Broughton Street Boycott” in late March, which was supported by picketing. Legally, only two picketers could protest at a time; however, activists sidestepped this law by engaging in silent picketing (i.e.: walking up and down the street without signs near the targeted stores).
March 20, 1960
The NAACP starts hosting mass meetings every Sunday afternoon to inform the community about protest activities and organize upcoming events.
August 18, 1960
Twenty-seven protestors stage a wade-in (a sit-in at the beach or in the water) on the segregated Tybee Island beach. Eleven are charged with "disrobing in public."
June 1961
The Savannah bus line agrees to begin hiring Black drivers.
October 1961
Protestors stage a “kneel-in” after students are barred from attending Sunday service at white churches. Many also participated in “ride-ins” on buses and “stand-ins” in movie theaters.
The protests and boycotts come to an end after 19 months when the city agrees to desegregate parks, swimming pools, busses, and restaurants. The ordinance that segregated lunch counters is repealed. By the time the boycott ends, five small stores have gone bankrupt and several supermarkets have closed.
June 4, 1963
Movie theaters renege on their agreement to integrate, prompting waves of protests.
The Chatham County Crusade for Voters, mostly made up of younger activists like Benjamin Van Clark and led by civil rights leader Hosea Williams, protests in night marches. Described by participants as “a street movement,” these nightly marches were not always peaceful. The tactic was to overload the court system and jails with arrested marchers.
July 1963
Seventy-five protesters are arrested on a night march. The city bans marches, and the Georgia National Guard is alerted. Thousands of demonstrators meet in front of a segregated Holiday Inn and march to the jail where previously arrested demonstrators are being held. Police and Georgia State Troopers attack protestors with clubs and tear gas and arrest almost 300 people.
September 10, 1963
Twelve Black students, including Sage Brown, Martha Jean Coleman, Deloris Cooper, Flora Ann Goldwire, George Shinhoster, Sadie Mae Simmons, and Sara Townsend, are transferred to the 12th grade of the previously all-white Savannah High School. They are greeted with acts of physical aggression, spitballs, racial slurs, and the following chant: "Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate.”
October 1, 1963
A widespread and relentless campaign by local activists forces the city of Savannah to finally desegregate public and private facilities, some eight months ahead of federal civil rights legislation (known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed racial segregation and prohibited employment discrimination).
Vehicles of Change
Although the automobile was invented in the early 19th century in Europe, it would take another 100 years for the car to become a force for radical change in the United States. The mass production of affordable vehicles in 20th-century America democratized mobility—that is, the ability to move freely and easily. No longer reliant on less effective modes of transportation such as trains and horse-drawn buggies or restricted by seemingly unconquerable distances, many Americans were given newfound freedom to live, work, and travel where they pleased.
The ubiquity of the automobile transformed landscapes and architecture, stimulated the growth of tourism and its related industries (service stations, roadside restaurants, drive-ins, and roadside hotels and motels), connected rural and urban centers, and led to the creation of the highway system. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, approximately 78 percent of American households owned one or more motor vehicles in the 1960s; in the 1980s, this figure increased to 87 percent, with many American households owning more than one.
The automobile would also help fuel the historic changes that occurred throughout the country in the 20th century—a time of civil rights, women’s rights, anti-war protests, and loosened social mores and moral codes. The opportunities granted by the automobile freed individuals from confined geographic locations, homes, or prescribed roles. The empowering nature of the vehicle and its ability to foster a new type of self-expression is exemplified by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957)—a novel about a band of youths traveling the country by car and living off poetry, drugs, and jazz—which inspired a generation of individuals and artists to take to the roads.
Many Black Americans, who were oppressed by legally mandated and broadly condoned racial discrimination, identified transportation as a pivotal battleground in the struggle for freedom. Indeed, they fought transportational segregation in and out of the courts for half of the 19th century and most of the 20th century. Buses and cars were also used to stage boycotts (most famously, in Montgomery, Alabama from 1955–1956) and organize Freedom Rides to the South in 1961. In Savannah, activists were able to register an unprecedented number of Black Americans to vote in 1963 by offering free rides to register voters; this effort gave Black Savannahians powerful leverage in their fight to desegregate the city.
These photographs from Telfair Museums’ permanent collection not only testify to the centrality of the automobile in 20th-century American society; they also speak to the many ways in which vehicles helped usher transformational change, whether in the fight for civil rights or the desire for increased freedom, mobility, and new modes of self-expression.
This exhibition was organized by Telfair Museums and curated by Anne-Solène Bayan, assistant curator.
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top to bottom Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) Untitled, 1959 Modern gelatin silver print Gift of anonymous donor, 2018.16.10 Untitled, 1959 Gelatin silver print Gift of anonymous donor, 2018.16.17 One of Bruce Davidson’s first major projects was his 1959 Brooklyn Gang series, which documented the daily lives of the members of “The Jokers,” a teenage gang in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Davidson recalled: “I was 26 and they were 15, but I could see my own repression in them and I began to feel a connection to their desperation. I began to feel their isolation and even my own.” The series has been hailed for its probing empathy and authentic portrayal of these adolescents, mostly Catholic school students or dropouts from working class families. These two photographs from the series—a couple in a park at nighttime, partly illuminated by the powerful headlights of a car in the background; and a young man covered in grease, repairing his vehicle—offer a window into two intertwined realms, youth culture and car culture of the 1960s. |
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Elaine Mayes (American, b. 1936) Autolandscape, Bus, Utah, 1971 Archival pigment print Proposed museum purchase with funds provided by Mrs. Robert O. Levitt Securing a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1971, Elaine Mayes embarked on a journey to photograph landscapes and people seen through her moving car. The resulting black-and-white series Autolandscapes refers to her vantage point inside her automobile and the quasi-automatic way in which she took the photographs—guided more by instinct, even occasionally capturing images without looking through her camera’s viewfinder. This work, which shows a Greyhound bus sleekly advancing through an otherwise peaceful landscape, calls to mind the ambitious construction of the Interstate Highway System (IHS). Officially started in 1956, the IHS was meant to improve safety, accommodate the growing number of automobiles and increased traffic on smaller roads, and connect major hubs across the country. Its construction notably allowed bus companies to offer a novelty—low-cost trips throughout the entire USA. In an early Greyhound advertisement, a smiling young woman triumphantly proclaims: “Now I know how Columbus felt … I’ve discovered America!” |
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Joan Liftin (American, b. 1935) Macon, Lafayette, Tennessee, 1994 Skyline, Clarksburg, West Virginia, c. 1984
Judy, Mt Sterling, Kentucky, c. 1982 Color Cibachrome print on paper Gifts of Helen Levitt, 1999.11.2-5 Liftin documented the unique world of the drive-in theater for over 20 years, even producing a book devoted to the topic in 2004. In her photographs, the drive-in comes alive in daytime and nighttime with all its familiar attributes: The large blank screens hoisted over vast parking lots, drive-through ticket booths, and the flurry of human activity that continues to define the experience—the play of family, friends, and lovers in and out of their vehicles. Her work is a tribute to the thrilling sensorial experience of the drive-in and its ability to afford more Americans spaces for entertainment, self-expression, and socialization. Indeed, Liftin explained: “There was snobbism about drive-in movies, and that bothered me. That was where couples that couldn’t go out together went, such as black and white or gay couples.” Although officially born in the 1930s, the drive-in theater enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s when more Americans owned motor vehicles. Liftin estimated that there were 6,000 such theaters across the country at the height of their popularity. It is worth noting that her work chronicles this distinctly American pastime in the late 20th century, after the era of segregated drive-ins. |
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Joan Liftin (American, b. 1935) “Psycho,” Gypsy, Bardstown, Kentucky, c. 1980 Color Cibachrome print on paper Gift of Helen Levitt, 1999.11.1 A bare leg juts out of a car door, spotlighted by a warm light inside the vehicle. A drive-in theater in Kentucky, enveloped by dusk in a blue and purple glow, is playing Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological horror thriller film Psycho (1960). Liftin has framed the shot to emphasize the portable speakers, in center, which individuals hooked to their cars to hear the film’s soundtrack. The artist, who expressed the unique charms and poetry of the drive-in theater through photography, also wrote about the topic: “People want the gritty, romantic pleasures of watching a movie under friendly skies. And even more, out on the prairie, on land that only a tornado could love, people gather under often unfriendly skies to hang out, to see the neighbors, get the latest gossip and watch a movie. Teenagers still head for the back rows. There are always rumors of the end of the drive-in. I say let baseball go first.” |
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Judy Linn (American, b. 1947) Universal Mall, Warren, 1972 Gelatin silver print Gift of Helen Levitt, 1997.8.4 This photograph dramatically juxtaposes two arenas of spectacular technological progress: increased automobility in American society and the success of the United States’ space program, marked by the 1969 moon landing. Through visual association and a tight cropping of the image, these suburbanites—driving to the mall, its outer wall displaying a close-up of the cratered surface of the moon—are likened to drive-through space tourists. The image belongs to Judy Linn’s series Edge of Detroit, a photographic record of the emergence of white suburbia in the area from 1972 to 1973. This snapshot of a group headed to the mall in their automobile is a reminder that Americans’ increased use and ownership of private vehicles accelerated the growth and development of predominantly white and middle-to-upper class suburban centers across the country. |
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Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) Untitled, 1961 Vintage gelatin silver print Gift of an anonymous donor, 2018.16.335 On May 25, 1961, Bruce Davidson—a young photographer on assignment for The New York Times—joined a group of Freedom Riders traveling from Montgomery, Alabama (where this image was taken) to Jackson, Mississippi. The Riders, whose trips started in early May that year, were travelling throughout the South to peacefully protest segregation in transportation. They were often met with arrests and incredible acts of violence, frequently condoned by law enforcement. In some instances, mobs physically assaulted the protestors and burned the buses they traveled in. As seen in this photograph, the National Guard was sent to escort the Riders during their travels. On May 29, 1961, the Kennedy administration announced that it had directed the Interstate Commerce Commission to ban segregation in all facilities under its jurisdiction. Even after this victory, many continued the rides to test the law, which officials claimed would take effect in November 1961. Before the Freedom Rides, vehicles had been successfully employed to subvert and protest segregation. For instance, in 1955, during the Montgomery bus boycott, Black Americans refused to ride segregated buses and protestors developed a “free ride” system to exert pressure on the city. This coordinated initiative, which lasted 381 days, led to the integration of Montgomery’s buses in December 1956. |
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top to bottom Frederick C. Baldwin (American, b. 1929) The Ballot Bus, 1963 Gelatin silver print Museum purchase, 2009.3.4, 2009.3.5 “He loved that Ballot Bus. (…) I have seen him go on the corner and grab dudes—say, ‘Looka here man!’ He say, ‘You register to vote?’ ‘No.’ ‘Come on—get in.’ ‘Lester, I can’t go nowhere with you right now!’ ‘You GONNA GET IN HERE!’ (…)” – Benjamin Van Clark remembers Lester Hankerson’s efforts to persuade prospective voters to ride in the Ballot Bus.
While many helped register voters, Lester Hankerson—pictured here resting against the vehicle advertising “Ballot Bus” “Free Ride No Excuses”—stood out as a formidable force. He looked for potential voters in bars, street corners, and union halls. His friends and fellow activists remember his love of the “bus” (a black four-door Dodge) which would take individuals to the courthouse to become registered voters. |
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top to bottom Frederick C. Baldwin (American, b. 1929) Civil Rights Workers Posing with Ballot Bus, 1963 Gelatin silver print Museum purchase, 2009.3.6, 2009.3.18 Frederick Baldwin returned to Savannah in 1963 after having spent six years abroad as a freelance photographer. He found the city on the cusp of a major revolution: Protestors, marching down Bull Street, were “waving American flags and carrying signs: FREEDOM OR DEATH (…) Four hundred young men and women, mostly students, were singing We Shall Overcome.” After meeting and befriending the civil rights leader Hosea Williams, Baldwin was able to gain access to and record this pivotal moment of Savannah’s history. His photographs shed light on the tireless work of activists like Lester Hankerson, Henry Brownlee, and Williams to register voters. They notably used the promise of a free ride to the courthouse on the Ballot Bus to persuade individuals to register. In describing the importance of the Ballot Bus, Baldwin recalls Hankerson’s tale of encountering a couple fearful of exercising their fundamental right: “I remember we went to this house and it was an old couple and they wanted to go [register to vote], but then didn’t, for fear that their lives would be in jeopardy. Well, the old lady she had a job, but she was working for some whites. She said ‘well, if she find out I go, she might fire me.’ So I say ‘Don’t worry, I got a job for you.’ She said ‘What kind of job?’ And I said, ‘I’m going to let you drive the Ballot Bus.’” |
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Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) Untitled, 1962 Modern gelatin silver print Gift of an anonymous donor, 2018.16.329 Davidson captured this Savannah scene the same year he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph the Civil Rights Movement. Those images now belong to a series entitled Time of Change, which the late civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis—who came to know Davidson during the Freedom Rides—described as an important work of activism that transported the world to “small Southern towns” and inspired many “to join the movement.” Congressman Lewis also reflected: “Without the media and without these [Davidson’s] powerful images, I don’t know where we’d be today; I don’t know how the movement would have succeeded.” Here, Davidson captures a parade in Savannah. Men and women, dressed to impress, gather on and around a car, decorated with garlands of roses. By 1962, Black Savannahians were in the process of fighting for the desegregation of their city and Davidson must have captured this local scene as he traveled and documented the unrest fomenting throughout the South. |