By Page Olsen ’20, staff writer
The Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery opened its current exhibition, “Danny Lyon: Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement,” on Jan. 24.
The show includes dozens of black and white prints, taken by Lyon, capturing the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties. The recent opening of this exhibition was fitting in light of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and racial justice speaker Ruth Naomi Floyd presenting at the Symposium on Inclusive Excellence.
The opening reception was held on Jan. 24 from 5 to 7 p.m. Students, faculty and the public were moved by and enjoyed the exhibition while listening to live music and eating refreshments. At the reception, gallery interns Olivia Haug, a junior creative writing major, and Sylvie Gibson-Gingrich, a senior art and visual culture major, shared their reactions to the exhibition.
“This exhibit is super interesting because it’s like first-hand experience of what the Civil Rights Movement was and seeing all the pictures and how it relates to modern day,” Haug said. “Those struggles are still going on and how things have changed but also how things are still the same. It’s really sad but interesting to see the juxtaposition.”
Many of these photographs display how young those in the movement were.
“I thought it was interesting how young everyone was in the Civil Rights Movement,” Gibson-Gingrich said. “They’re like our age or younger. I think some of the women imprisoned in the one photo were only like 13.”
Part of Haug and Gibson-Gingrich’s responsibilities as interns included aiding in the construction of the exhibition.
“It took over 250 pieces of tape to hang up the wall labels,” Gibson-Gingrich said.
The exhibition will run until March 22. The gallery is open on Wednesdays from 5 to 8 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays from 1 to 4:30 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.