Loutit Library celebrates Washington Post editorial cartoonist's Civil Rights works

GRAND HAVEN — Loutit District Library in Grand Haven is exploring the celebrated works of one of America's most well-known editorial cartoonists.

"The Long March" exhibit, which runs through Feb. 28, is a special exhibit that highlights the Civil Rights era works of Herbert Lawrence Block, widely known as "Herblock."

Block was an American editorial cartoonist and author best known for his commentaries on national domestic and foreign policy.

The Civil Rights era, from the 1940s through the 1960s, transformed American laws and attitudes, the turbulent time included landmark Supreme Court decisions, dynamic leaders, powerful boycotts and massive marches.

An outspoken voice of the time, well known in his era, was Block, a political cartoonist for The Washington Post.

Who is Herblock?

“Herblock” became the most honored cartoonist of his time, winning three Pulitzer Prizes and sharing a fourth for his Watergate cartoons, which contributed to the resignation of then-President Richard Nixon.

He was the only living cartoonist whose work was exhibited in the National Gallery of Art, and the only living cartoonist to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He caricatured 13 U.S. presidents, from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush, chronicling American history from the 1929 Stock Market crash through summer 2001. He took on causes with courage and conviction, coined the phrase “McCarthyism,” forced reform, and became the most influential and enduring political cartoonist in American history.

He died in 2001, at the age of 91.

"The Civil Rights Movement was one of Herblock’s chief concerns. He illustrated the history and dialogue of this turbulent era in American society," said Chelsea Payton, Loutit's community engagement and marketing manager. "His cartoons show us who we were as Americans, as well as the lessons to be learned from the Civil Rights Movement."

For more information, visit loutitlibrary.org/herblock.