The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality (1964). Summary and Description

“The main burden of Negro aspiration remains what it has always been: total integration into the fabric of a nation which our slave fathers helped to create. EQUALITY: economic, political, social, civil” (50).

The year 1963 was pivotal in the Civil Rights movement. As riots erupted in the South, Eugene “Bull” Connor, the police commissioner of Birmingham Alabama, responded with fire hoses and dogs. People across the nation joined organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC,) cofounded by Martin Luther King, Jr., to help effect policy change by increasing voter registration. Hansberry, along with James Baldwin and a select group of performers and activists, met with Attorney General Robert Kennedy to discuss civil rights. There are many different versions of what happened at the meeting. According to one source Hansberry asked for a moral commitment; however, when the talk turned to handing out weapons to aid in the struggle, Kennedy felt he had lost control of the meeting, and Hansberry, seeing that they were not getting anywhere, left.

It was a devastating year personally, socially, and politically for Hansberry. Baldwin and Hansberry were sharply criticized for their perceived militancy in the meeting with Kennedy. The Kennedy administration was popular among black southern voters, and many people did not want to alienate a government they felt was on their side. In addition to her cancer diagnosis, there was the bombing of a church in Birmingham, which killed four young girls; Medgar W. Evers, NAACP field secretary and war hero, was gunned down in his front yard; and President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

While Hans- berry’s friends were attending the famous March on Washington, demonstrating for equal rights, more jobs, and civil rights legislation, she was preparing for surgery. She listened to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, “I Have a Dream” speech in her hospital bed. It was announced at the march that Hansberry’s mentor, W. E. B. DuBois, had died in Ghana at the age of 95. As the Hansberry biographers the McKissacks state, “The sad irony, of course, is that many of the young civil rights volunteers who were there that day didn’t even know who DuBois was or that their work was a fulfillment of his dream” (McKissack, 127).

The year 1964 was one of great social upheaval as well. That summer there were riots in major cities across America. Hansberry responded with The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality, a photo documentary of the Civil Rights movement. Hansberry worked on the book between radiation treatments. Despite her weakness and deteriorating health, she remained a determined activist. Published by the SNCC in 1964, The Movement contains stirring commentary accompanying Danny Lyon’s poignant photographs. The photos are of ordinary people, black and white, involved in the struggle for equality.

There are photos of lynchings, sit-ins, demonstrations, and the effects of racial violence. The subjects are young and old, churchgoers, students, and protesters, all either victims of poverty and injustice or those demanding basic human rights, all emphasizing the historical background of injustice in the United States. She draws readers in with a variety of quotes ranging from southern ministers to Muslim doctrine, slave insurrectionists to NAACP chapter heads, everyday workers to leaders such as Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, and DuBois. Her commentary and Lyon’s photographs of the rural South’s inhabitants remind readers that racism is not the only cause of suffering and that poverty among both blacks and whites is a persistent problem that needs to be addressed.

Hansberry sums up the last photograph perfectly. It is a photo of a beautiful person whose short hair and high cheekbones make it hard to determine whether it is a young woman or a boy. Rain drips off the face as the eyes confront the camera with confident intelligence: “They stand in the hose fire at Birmingham; they stand in the rain at Hattiesburg. They are young, they are beautiful, they are determined. It is for us to create, now, an America that deserves them” (122).

For Discussion or Writing
1. The Movement opens with a quote from James Baldwin, “It is a terrible, an inexorable law that one can not deny the humanity of another without diminishing one’s own.” What is the significance of that quote to the book?

2. How is The Movement different from Hansberry’s other works? How is it similar?

3. Hansberry was influenced by two civil rights leaders with contrasting views, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. After exploring speeches of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King (perhaps Malcolm X’s “The Ballet or the Bullet” and King’s “I Have a Dream”), write a well-developed essay in which you argue whose philosophy is reflected more strongly in The Movement?