Historic Photos of Harrison Mayes’ Sign Ministry

Ivan Massar, From the Selma to Montgomery, 1965

Like photo-essayist James Karales, photojournalist Ivan Massar documented the fifty-four-mile voting-rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Like Karales, Massar took a picture of Harrison Mayes iconic roadside marker in the foreground and the marchers on US-80 in the background.

Elliott Erwitt, Alabama, 1955

French-American photographer Elliott Erwitt with a snapshot of one of Henry Harrison Mayes corrugated metal crosses.

Walker Evans – Tennessee Road Sign, December 27, 1969

Peter Simon – Raymond Mungo on Liberation News Service road trip, somewhere in Nebraska, 1967

Photojournalist Peter Simon and Raymond Mungo, co-founder of the Liberation News Service (an alternative news agency), were on a road trip, taking a picture next to one of Harrison Mayes’ crosses. The typography is a bit different from Mayes’ more geometrical letters, but it’s one of his. Also, this is one of the more rare documented signs outside Appalachia.