Keeping In Shape: A federalized National Guard unit performs a close order drill to keep in shape and pass the time as they stand by in Montgomery, Alabama in case of trouble over the weekend. This group is Headquarter Battery 1st Howitzer Battalion from Andalusia, Alabama. They are part of the troops that guarded the 50 mile hike from Selma to Montgomery by Civil Rights groups this week.

The Selma to Montgomery Marches were three protest marches held in 1965 along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of black citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression. They were part of a broader voting rights movement underway in Selma and throughout the American South. By highlighting racial injustice, the marches contributed to passage that year of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark federal achievement of the Civil Rights Movement.

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

• Andalusia
• Civil Rights Movements
• Guardsmen
• Headquarter Battery
• Injustice
• Montgomery
• Racial Discrimination
• Selma to Montgomery March
• Training

• Image Dimensions: 6 11/16 x 9 1/4 in. (16.99 x 23.5 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen
• Sheet Dimensions: 8 1/8 x 10 in. (20.64 x 25.4 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen