Portraits of Courage: Reclaiming Civil Rights Surveillance Photographs Through Portrait Artistry and Visual Storytelling

Author Information

Mary Soylu, Alabama State University, United States
Nathaniel Allen, Alabama State University, United States
Brittany Myburgh, Jackson State University, United States

Abstract

This paper examines an arts-based community intervention organized through a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) art program in Alabama that used portraiture to confront the visual legacy of systemic racism. The project centered on open studio drawing sessions held alongside a campus exhibition of law enforcement surveillance photographs taken during the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. These images, which were originally produced to monitor and control civil rights activists, were re-contextualized through portrait drawing to honor the courage and humanity of the “Bloody Sunday” foot soldiers they depict. Grounded in systems theory, this study understands art as a meaning-making system capable of interrupting dominant visual regimes and exposing the structures that sustain racialized power. By engaging local artists as participants rather than subjects, the project employed community-based participatory research methods to document how artists experienced their role as cultural agents working within and against systemic inequities. Data included artist reflections, observational field notes, and visual artifacts produced during the sessions. The paper situates the project within broader histories of visual culture by contrasting the emancipatory role of photojournalism in advancing the Civil Rights Movement with the coercive function of surveillance imagery. Through this comparison, the study highlights how artistic reworking of archival images can transform instruments of oppression into sites of collective memory, healing, and resistance. This paper contributes to global conversations about art education, social justice, and community engagement by demonstrating how locally-grounded, historically specific art practices can generate models for socially responsive pedagogy and peace-oriented cultural work.

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