"Protest graphics are the products of a specific kind of urgency. This vital energy does not serve the time-pressured needs of a brand message or the clarion call of capitalism for design to grease the wheels of our economic engines. The buttons, pamphlets, flyers, and posters in this volume, from multiple generations in the Civil Rights struggle, are fury made visible. Across time and space, the objects in this volume capture a series of calls and responses of the dire needs of Black communities in pain, networks of human beings fighting for civil rights who have faced and continue to face oppression. Each material artifact shown speaks to the demands of activists making designs in matters of life and death.

"Call-and-response is a musical structure that is made up of two phrases that form a rhythmic dialogue. This pattern of musical refrain begins with an initiator who makes a “call.” That opening phrase can be sung, played, or danced, or it can be a medley of all three, and it is always answered by a reciprocal expressive response. Call-and-response as a musical structure has its origins in African music—though you also find it in African American gospel and rhythm and blues, Colombian cumbia, and Peruvian huachihualo forms. This multiplicity of geographies and diasporas was created by the forced migration of Africans through the transatlantic slave trade. The resulting musical aesthetics highlight improvisation and collaboration—skills necessary for community cohesion as conquests by colonial empires stretched across the Americas." - Silas Munro

Book Excerpt: Fury Made Visible: Call and Response for Civil Rights through Graphic Design