CORE Chairman Speaks: Floyd McKissick (right), Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, tells a group of delegates at the National Conference for New Politics in Chicago that organization from the bottom up is the key to black political power. At left is one of McKissick's body guards in an African-style smock.

Floyd McKissick (March 9, 1922 – April 28, 1991) was an American lawyer and Civil Rights activist. He became the first black student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Law School. In 1966, he became leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), taking over from James L. Farmer, Jr. A supporter of Black Power, McKissick turned CORE into a more radical movement. In 1968, he left CORE to found Soul City in Warren County, North Carolina. He endorsed Richard Nixon for president that year; under President Nixon, the federal government supported Soul City. McKissick became a state district court judge in 1990. Politician and attorney Floyd McKissick, Jr. is his son.

On recto: typewritten title and date.
On verso: Associated Press stamp and date stamp.

Wire photographs were originally transmitted over phonelines, then later, by satellite. They were first used in the early 1920s. Associated Press became a leader with this. After pigment touch-ups, etc., the print is put into a drum (like a drum scanner). The image gets converted into audio tones that are transmitted. The tones are received and beamed onto photo-sensitive paper. Wire photographs are copies without originals---they are hybrid, transmitted objects. (Britt Salvesen, Curator and Department Head, Photography Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 30-31, 2022)

This object has the following keywords:

• Chicago
• Civil Rights Movements
• Congress of Racial Equality
• Delegates
• Floyd McKissick
• Injustice
• Male Portraits
• National Conference for New Politics
• Racial Discrimination

• Image Dimensions: 6 11/16 x 9 1/8 in. (16.99 x 23.18 cm) Measured by Cornejo-Reynoso, Aitzin
• Sheet Dimensions: 8 1/16 x 10 in. (20.48 x 25.4 cm) Measured by Cornejo-Reynoso, Aitzin