Demonstration at an All-White Swimming Pool
Danny Lyon, American, born 1942
negative 1962; print 1996
Gelatin silver print
Image: 9 × 13 1/4 in. (22.9 × 33.6 cm)
Sheet: 10 15/16 × 14 in. (27.8 × 35.5 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through Mrs. Harvey P. Hood W '18 Fund
2015.15.3
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Photograph
Research Area
Photograph
On view
Inscriptions
Signed, on reverse, bottom center to right, in graphite: Danny Lyon; inscribed, on reverse, lower left, in graphite: #1; Stamped, on reverse, lower right, in red ink: [in circle] Printer / C.U. (in graphite) \ BLEAK BEAUTY / 1962 (in graphite) (star) 1996 (in graphite) / Picture Date Print Date; inscribed, on reverse, upper right, in graphite: DL 0052 / ST1051
Label
A group of young Black men are lined up to gain entrance to a public swimming pool as a group of young White men blocks them while standing behind a sign that says “private pool, members only.” The sign is a lie: this pool—the only one in Cairo, Illinois—was operated by the city and had been mandated to be integrated. The demonstration had been organized by the Cairo Nonviolent Freedom Committee and was supported by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), of which Danny Lyon was a staff photographer. The pool was indeed desegregated, only to be closed down and paved over two weeks later.
From the 2026 exhibition Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, curated by Amelia Kahl (Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming) and Alisa Swindell (Associate Curator of Photography)
Course History
History 96.38, 20th Century US Social Movements, Julia Rabig, Fall 2023
Studio Art 17.09, Photographer as Activist, Anthony Romero, Winter 2025
Geography 21.01/International Studies 18.01, Global Health and Society, Anne Sosin, Spring 2025
Exhibition History
Civil Rights, Photographs of the Movement for Equality in America, 1956-1968, Lee Gallery, Winchester, Massachusetts, Fall 2014.
Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, Jaffe and Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 20, 2025 - July 11, 2026.
Provenance
Lee Gallery, Winchester, Massachusetts; sold to present collection, 2015.
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