Speak Out for Justice [caption title]

[Greenville, Al, 1965. About good.. Photo-illustrated broadside, 11 x 8.5 inches. Old tears repaired with cello tape on verso, four cello tape reinforcements along edges, noticeable tanning, old folds. Top corner chipped away. A highly-ephemeral and likely unique surviving example of this broadside handbill issued by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Greenville, Alabama in the heat of the Civil Rights Movement. A central photograph picturing a young Black woman and a group of African-American activists facing off against police occupies about half of the broadside, with the words "Speak Out for Justice" emblazoned above and below the photograph. Added by typewriter are the words, "Greenville, Alabama. 11/65" and "Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President." As with many other places in the South, Greenville, Alabama had been the site of numerous clashes between African-American citizens and police officers during the struggle for civil rights. The impetus for the present handbill was likely related to the recent clash between R.B. Cottonreader, a County Project Director for the SCLC in Greenville, and local authorities. Cottonreader and the SCLC sued the mayor and various officials in Greenville over the summer of 1965 for violating multiple constitutional rights relating to assembly, equal protection, voter registration, and more. Cottonreader and other African-American activists continued their civil disobedience into November (the date typed on the present handbill). Eventually, the U.S. District Court in Alabama found both Cottonreader and the local officials equally culpable for the unrest in Greenville.