ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – Mexican-American photographer Maria Varela was present at some of the most dramatic moments of the Civil Rights Movement, capturing images of voting rights demonstrations in Alabama and efforts to create Head Start programs in poor, rural areas.
As one of the few Latinas involved in the black Civil Rights Movement, historians say, her work has often been overlooked.
Now the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago is set to feature 28 images from the Albuquerque resident’s rarely seen photography of the movement at an exhibition called “Time to Get Ready: Fotographía Social.”
“You can tell she wasn’t just someone who dropped in and photographed what happened. She was part of what was happening,” said Cesareo Moreno, the museum’s visual arts director.
Moreno said the exhibit will cover Varela’s work from Mississippi marches and voting rights battles to photographs she took of Chicano activists fighting to get Spanish land grants recognized in New Mexico.