Although leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Rosa Parks grabbed the 1960s civil rights headlines and a majority of the spotlight for Black History Month, there are still a slew of other individuals who have engraved their names onto history.
Last Wednesday, Edwin Frank, the curator of special collections at the McWherter Library, finished setting up the latest display of special collections on the library's fourth floor. The display includes photographs and book covers provided by local and civil rights photographer Ernest Withers and his agent Panopticon Inc.
The photographs depict Memphis during the Civil Rights Movement. They bear images of King, the Memphis Red Sox and other players from the Negro baseball leagues, a woman holding a voter registration card in 1960, the "Poor People's March on Washington" and famous entertainers such as B.B. King and the Ike and Tina Turner Revue.
"His (Withers) photos are documentation of that time period," Frank said. "Withers had a good idea and he was able to capture particular moments very well."
During that period, numerous publications also vied for Withers' work.
Although Withers said he never developed a personal relationship with his subjects, his goal was to deliver what occurred amongst everyday people and times, but not necessarily media frenzy civil rights figures.
"I wasn't a minister," he said. "I was a photographer. I was taking what was going on.
"In every community there were always big stories."
History and news reports depicted the Civil Rights Movement through the exploits of leaders such as King, Parks and Malcolm X, but the roots were deeper. It involved every person who struggled in that time period and many of them did not receive the glorious praise, Withers said.
"Wherever you went there were massive amounts of people," he said. "It started in Tennessee, Mississippi and Memphis.
"Everyone has a legacy, and some people became icons."
While Ike and Tina Turner and B.B. King were not civil rights activists, their rise to prominence in their respective industry created two Civil Rights Movements at once, according to Aram Goudsouzian, an assistant professor of history.
"These were people who weren't necessarily political activists," he said. "Celebrities played a distinct function to civil rights and they were black figures who created political causes."
Goudsouzian said although it was important for such a matter to be on national news, the ordinary people still made several contributions.
"Throughout the South people didn't always get coverage," he said. "Regular people were organizing this. It puts our eyes on the ordinary."
Famous marches, protests, speeches, debates and efforts were all made during the movement. However, other actions also spoke loudly, such as the Brooklyn Dodgers playing Jackie Robinson and the University of Mississippi's acceptance of James Meredith.
Withers' pictures of Jackie Robinson, who played his first major league game on Apr. 15, 1947, depicted one example of an African-American crossing a dangerous line. Although Robinson was chastised by fans and opposing players, several Negro league players followed suit and multiplied the amount of African-Americans in Major League Baseball.
One picture also shows King holding a newspaper where the headline reported James Meredith's first day at the University of Mississippi in October of 1962. The event unfortunately led to the injury of several United States soldiers, but a little more than a year later Meredith graduated.
"Pictures tell the story," said Tom Mendina, the assistant dean of libraries.
