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Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 Birmingham campaign was an exercise in cross-racial vision. Using what Kevin DeLuca has defined as the "image event" as a mode of public address, King targeted the conscience of white moderates by making visible the reality of racial injustice. Through a close analysis of both Charles Moore's Life photographs of fire hoses and police dogs turned against black demonstrators and the effects of their international circulation, I argue that rhetorical critics cannot account for King's success in arousing the conscience of white moderates through an examination of his oral and written address alone; they must take into account King's mastery of visual communication.
Taylor Branch summarizes the major challenge of Martin Luther King Jr. as one of visibility: King struggled to "lead whites and Negroes to see the same truths," necessitating, in King's own words, the cultivation of "cross-racial vision."1 King's speeches and writings are widely recognized as rhetorical masterpieces that function to establish "cross-racial vision" by persuading diverse audiences, particularly white moderates, of the urgent necessity of racial reform.2 King's repertoire of rhetorical tactics is not limited to verbal address; his skillful mastery of visual communication and his strategic use of mass media constitute important facets of his public address. Specifically, the 1963 Birmingham campaign demands scrutiny as an image event, and the visual counterpart to King's verbal address, particularly his "Letter from Birmingham Jail."
Rhetorical critics have analyzed King's famous "Letter" as a potent appeal to the conscience of white moderates, an address that definitively shifted the national discussion on racial reform from political to moral vocabularies.3 King's success in arousing the conscience of white moderates cannot be attributed to his "Letter" alone, or even the whole of his verbal address. The shift of the civil rights discussion from the political to the moral realm was the product of a multifaceted rhetorical event that included visual, as well as verbal, components. King's Birmingham campaign made the "color line" visible, activating the shame and moral condemnation of white moderates. If King's "Letter" is an articulate description of his visual strategy, the Birmingham campaign is its implementation. The verbal appeals to conscience, emotion, and moral sensibility were successful in part because the images of dogs and fire hoses turned...