Civil Rights Films

We'll Never Turn Back

1963, 31 min., black/white, DVD

We'll Never Turn Back, produced by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was shot by Harvey Richards in Mississippi in 1963 during the dangerous voter registration drives of that era.

It shows Julian Bond, Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer, Samuel Block, Charles McDew and other local civil rights leaders. It interviews black farmers and farm workers on their experiences (often bloody) trying to register to vote.

Topics: SNCC, civil rights, voter registration, 1960s.

The making of Richards' Civil Rights Movement films is discussed in Primary Source Documentaries: The Making of We’ll Never Turn Back (1963) and Dream Deferred (1964) (PDF).

Other civil rights films:

Photographs

Licensing

Richards’ still photography in the South began during his 1959 trip through the region (see "Mississippi 1959"). He also shot still photos during his two film projects in 1963 and 1964 (see "Civil Rights Activists") and on many other occasions in the San Francsico Bay Area during local civil rights protests of that era.



© Paul Richards
"Fannie Lou Hamer tells her story in 1963" from We'll Never Turn Back

Amzie Moore
© Paul Richards © Paul Richards
Classroom
Click for slideshow of
Mississippi 1959
Amzie Moore
Click for slideshow of
Voter Registration Activists 1963
 

Cover of Critical Focus
Critical Focus:
The Black and White
Photographs of
Harvey Wilson Richards

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