(27 Dec 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Orangeburg, South Carolina - 12 December 2023
1. Wide of wall of photos inside Cecil Williams South Carolina Civil Rights Museum
2. Wide of exterior of the museum
3. Medium of signage
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Cecil Williams, photographer:
"Photography is so important to telling stories about history and we in South Carolina formally have not been known for involvement in the American Civil Rights Movement and the progress that took place bringing down the barriers to segregation. But in South Carolina, we have so many untold stories that are yet to be known and one of the ways to save these stories, these stories of sacrifice, these stories of overcoming, is to have a museum like we are developing here in Orangeburg."
5. Medium of photographer Cecil Williams pointing out people in his photo
6. Wide of a panel of photos in the museum
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Cecil Williams, photographer:
"We started in 2019 and now here in 2023 have had about 25,000 visitors who, I must say, have come out of their way to a residential area to see a museum we have developed. In a year and a half, we hope to have a new museum in Orangeburg located on the railroad corner in downtown Orangeburg."
8. Tight of Williams demonstrating how he digitizes images
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Cecil Williams, photographer, describing an image of him at a white only water fountain:
"We had gone to the lower part of the state to photograph an assignment for Jet Magazine and on the way back, got thirsty, wanted some water. Bottles of water were not really regularly available in stores, so this water fountain was at a service station. And I got out, took a drink of water. My friend who accompanied me Randall Harper photographed me. And of course he also got out and took a drink out of the fountain and I photographed him."
10. Tight of Williams holding a rendering of the expanded museum building
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Cecil Williams, photographer:
"And I was not welcomed as an African-American youth and as a photographer in the state newspaper. But I could go upstairs where the Associated Press used many of my photographs during the 1960s."
12. Wide of several images on the wall of the museum
13. Tight of Williams showing a petition on boycotting in Orangeburg
STORYLINE:
Much of how South Carolina has seen its civil rights history has been through the lens of photographer Cecil Williams. From sit-ins to prayer protests to portraits of African Americans integrating universities and rising to federal judges, Williams has snapped it.
After years of work, his chief dream of a civil rights museum marking how Black Americans fought segregation and discrimination in the state is about to move out of his old house and into a much bigger, and more prominent, building in Orangeburg.
“Photography is so important to telling stories about history. And we in South Carolina formally have not been known for involvement in the American Civil Rights Movement and the progress that took place bringing down the barriers to segregation," said Williams, who turned 85 last month.
“But in South Carolina, we have so many untold stories that are yet to be known. And one of the ways to save these stories, these stories of sacrifice, these stories of overcoming, is to have a museum like we are developing here in Orangeburg."
He recalled how South Carolina newspapers would not hire a Black photographer, so he took his work to The Associated Press instead.
AP Video shot by Jeffrey Collins/ Production: Kristin M. Hall
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