King & the Klan: a Visual Experience

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at Reynolds Coliseum at NC State University on July 31, 1966. In response to his upcoming visit, the Ku Klux Klan staged an 1,800-person march through downtown Raleigh. In this digital installation crafted by Dr. Margaret Baker and Dr. Jason Miller, students were able to view newly discovered footage of Dr. King and previously undeveloped photographs of the KKK march. This installation has become an integral part of NC State’s new course HSS 201 - Critical Thinking in American Life: Engaging Across Difference, giving instructors an opportunity to engage students in critical discussions around both King’s speech and the KKK’s march. 

Overview

Each year, the students in HSS 201 - Critical Thinking in American Life: Engaging Across Difference take the trip to the D. H. Hill Jr. Library on NC State’s North Campus to see the King & the Klan exhibit in the Cyma Rubin Visualization Gallery. This digital installation, put together through a long-term collaboration between Dr. Margaret Baker (then a PhD Candidate in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program) and Dr. Jason Miller (Distinguished Professor, Department of English), shows previously undiscovered photographs and video depicting two very different events held on July 31, 1966: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech at Reynolds Coliseum and the Ku Klux Klan’s 1,800-person march down Fayetteville Street. 

The exhibit is held in the Cyma Rubin Visualization Gallery, a unique 360-degree projection room that enables impactful and immersive experiences. Dr. Baker expertly used this room to create a digital gallery showing nearly 80 photographs and videos of the Klan’s march, ending with the single short piece of footage we have of Dr. King’s speech at Reynolds Coliseum. After viewing the 15-minute exhibit, the students are asked to critically analyze the materials, sparking wide-ranging discussions and reactions. 

How We Did It

This project began in 2019, when Dr. Miller became scholar-in-residence at the African American Cultural Center and conducted research at the North Carolina State Archives to uncover materials related to Dr. King’s visit to Raleigh. He retrieved more than 150 previously undeveloped photographs of the Klan’s march, taken by photographers from the Raleigh News & Observer. Eight staff photographers were assigned to cover the march, but none were sent to Dr. King’s speech at Reynolds Coliseum. As a result, only two photographs and no film footage were available from this landmark speech, until 2021 when Dr. Miller was contacted by a Raleigh local, whose father Edgar Wyatt had taken Super 8 color film footage of Dr. King speaking live statewide on the TV broadcast. That short film is now incorporated into the King & the Klan exhibit as the ending sequence. 

Dr. Miller asked Dr. Baker to produce and curate a digital installation and a short documentary film to help tell the full story of that day's events and its impact. The 20-minute documentary features individuals connected to King’s legacy at NC State including Miller, former Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Inclusion Joanne Woodard, former African American Cultural Center programming director Toni Harris Thorpe and Chancellor Randy Woodson, contextualizing the Klan and King footage. 

The digital installation features the newly discovered color film footage of both the Klan and King and the recently developed black-and-white images of the events. The two digital pieces work in concert with one another to contextualize King’s visit to campus. 

After collaborating with the African American Cultural Center in 2020 to create an exhibit showcasing the materials found in the archives, Dr. Miller coordinated with Chris Tonelli (Director of Libraries Communications) to install a digital version in the Hunt Library's  iPearl Immersion Theater. With the expertise of Brent Brafford (also from Libraries Communications), MLK at NC State 1966 was installed for view in 2021. 

After Dr. Baker’s creation of King and the Klan, Dr. Miller began exploring other ways of incorporating these remarkable materials and story into the curriculum at NC State.  After receiving a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Teagle Foundation in 2023, the Advanced Critical and Creative Thinking Certificate was created to engage STEM majors in the types of humanities-based skills needed to advance in their careers.  With students in the gateway course (HSS 201 - Critical Thinking in American Life) each reading Dr. King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963), the King and Klan exhibit became a natural way to frame engaging lessons to better contextualize that seminal text.  

To incorporate the materials into the HSS 201 course, Dr. Baker and Dr. Miller worked to create a new version of the exhibit, this time in the Cyma Rubin Visualization Gallery. The Gallery allows groups of up to 30 people to view exhibits and experiences together, encouraging the students to critically engage with the material through group discussions. Each semester, librarians at the NC State University Libraries coordinate with the instructors for HSS 201 to bring each section of the course into the Gallery. 

Results

Team