Analysis Of Charles Moore's 'Attack Dogs'

“Attack Dogs”
From the 1950s through the 1960s the United States presence the effort by the African American community to gain equality and eliminate segregation in what is called the Civil Rights Movement. One of the images that highly influenced the outcome of the movement and helped achieve legislation that treated everyone equal was “Attack Dogs,” a photograph taken by Charles Moore in 1963 and published in the LIFE magazine. This photograph helped shed light on the unethical treatment of the peaceful protesters by police officers in Birmingham, Alabama, which essentially aided in gaining even more momentum and support for the Civil Rights Movement. Writer John Kaplan from LIFE magazine depicts Charles Moore as the most well-known and influential photographer during the Civil Rights Movement from 1958-1965 (127). As a young man, Moore was a member of the Marine Corps and studied fashion photography in California, and it was not until 1957 when he returned home

The photograph of the “Attack Dogs,” reveals the unethical treatment protesters experienced from the Birmingham police department as they were attacked by their highly trained and dangerous dogs, while they were fighting for equality and human rights. The image displays an attempt by the white police officers to show authority, dominance, to create fear, and suppress any efforts of the Civil Rights Movement’s activists, as racist sentiments were extremely encrypted among many individuals in the South. Life magazine was considered by segregation supporters as extremely liberal and biased, yet the photographs that were published in Life magazine were so real and shocking that resulted in high support for the activist