A Fire You Can't Put Out: Voices of Embers
By photojournalist Cassandra Griffen

The exhibit offers a visual account of Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth's pursuit of equal rights for people of color. It features black and white images chronicling the past seven years of his life.

Cassandra Griffen is a self-taught photographer who has spent more than 30 years documenting the challenges of human life's circumstances through black and white photography. While serving as Commissioner of Human Rights for Rockland County, New York, her eyes were opened to a new dimension of racism and the civil rights movement.

Griffen participated in her first Martin Luther King, Jr. March in January 2002, and she realized there was something about racism/desperate treatment in Birmingham that was deeper and more profound. She realized this after hearing the message from Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth on the steps of city hall.  She knew little about Shuttlesworth then, but became determined to learn all she could about him. She followed Shuttlesworth on his continued mission to foster human/civil rights for Blacks in Alabama.

The exhibit is in the Odessa Woolfolk Gallery until February 27, 2011.