The pictures that Charles Moore took helped catapult one of the most important movements in history in to the national and international consciousness.

As a photographer in Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement, Moore captured a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being led away by police as they twisted his arm behind his back. Moore later joined Life Magazine and traveled around the South capturing some of the most important and violent events of the movement. Using short lenses that required him to get close to the action, Moore helped provide a close-up look at history that helped to influence history.

"I'm proud to say my photographs have helped to make a difference in our country and our society, and to show that we're all children of the same God," Moore said in a 2005 interview with the Montgomery Advertiser.

Moore, 79, died Thursday, but his contributions live on.

According to the Associated Press:

Moore photographed the riots at the University of Mississippi that coincided with the enrollment of James Meredith as its first black student. In one, white students hold a Confederate battle flag aloft as they jeer. The next year, in 1963, Moore was in Birmingham when black children and teenagers marched through city streets demanding an end to legalized segregation. They were met by police with snarling dogs and firefighters who pounded them with streams of water from fire hoses. In 1965, he photographed Alabama state troopers in masks tear-gassing voting rights marchers in Selma. The confrontation, which became known as "Bloody Sunday," received worldwide attention, partly because of Moore's photography.

"There are images of Charles in the middle of the scrum while other photographers are on the sidewalks, missing the action," Hank Klibanoff, who won a Pulitzer with Gene Roberts for their book "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation," told the Associated Press.

In other words, Moore risked his own personal safety to document the movement. And it was the national and international coverage of the Civil Rights Movement that helped shame leaders in this country and spur outraged residents into action. Photos of peaceful protesters being beaten by police, blasted with powerful fire hoses and threatened by the Klu Klux Klan helped spark powerful international, and eventually, national reaction.Carolyn McKinstry, who lost four friends in the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, said Moore's photos brought the struggles of the Deep South to an ignorant American public:

"It got international attention immediately. In the case of America, it took a lot longer," she said.

Moore realized how important his work was. He developed a relationship with Dr. King and other members of the movement that allowed him great access.

Moore's career says a lot about the importance of journalism in today's world.

Today, people are more swayed by the idiotic pronouncements of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and all of the other muck that passes for journalism on Fox News than actual facts. Opinion-whether from the left or the right-- is also being presented as factual truth. Newspapers are laying off more and more reporters to protect their bottom lines while insisting they can do more with less.

Today, we live in a world where a comedian like the Daily Show's Jon Stewart has to continually remind people that his comedy news show is not journalism and that he is not a journalist. Lack of diversity in the news ranks is still a major issue more than 30 years after it was brought to the attention of the media industry.

The world of journalism is not perfect. The public should question its motivations and conclusions as it would any institution, but Moore provides a good example of journalism at its best, because he went out and simply took pictures of the undisputed truth.

"They were trying to change the future. I think he could understand that," McKinstry told the AP.