Audience Analysis
Steve Schapiro is “a respected and sought after portraitist” who specialized in intricately revealing the social upheavals of the 1960s and 70s along side with his other genres. “Summer of 1964 Freedom Bus” is one of Schapiro's precious work. It conveys the story behind a valiant group of different race, civil right activists called Freedom Riders who in 1961 challenged segregation in the South silently. Throughout their ride from Washington D.C to Mississippi, the Freedom Riders courageously tested the Jim Crow Laws, laws that enforced racial segregation in the South. The caucasians used the colored only bathrooms. The colored people used the white only bathrooms. They also participated sit ins. Riders did not retaliate as they received brutal treatments from those in support of racial segregation. Schapiro’s photo “Summer of 1964 Freedom Bus” is addressing the public mostly where Jim Crow Laws were enforced. It brought to light the urge of racial equality, and the atrocity the freedom riders were willing to sustain and not retaliate in order help change racial segregation throughout the South.
I really love the joining of hands and singing in front of the bus in this photograph; it just makes me, as a viewer, truly feel the message of love and peace that the freedom riders are trying to convey. I definitely agree that a sense of urgency or "exigence" is brought about in this photo in order to combat racial segregation. -Kristen
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