Witness to history: Noted photographer of civil rights movement, Charles Moore dies at 79

Civil rights era photographer Charles Moore dies

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Civil rights-era photographer Charles Moore is being remembered for capturing the historic and often violent events in his home state of Alabama and across the South.

Historians and colleagues say he understood he was a witness to history and was among the few photojournalists whose images were close to the participants and events as they unfolded.

Moore, who died Thursday, was 79.

His photographs captured arresting images of the integration riots at Ole Miss in 1962, the fire hoses in Birmingham in 1963, and the “Bloody Sunday” assault in Selma in 1965, among many others. The Alabama native was one of the first photographers to document the civil rights leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.