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In the 1950s he also such baseball icons as Jackie
Robinson and Willie Mays. on Beale Street, he photographed the
early performances of such celebrities as Elvis Presley, B.B.
King, Ike and Tina Turner, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin.
Withers photos are here presented thanks to the permission
of www.panopt.com
©Ernest C. Withers courtesy of Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA.
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Wither's civil rights photographs are
known for their immediacy and directness that stems from
his use of a normal-focus lens. His nearness to events
were not only physical but also ideological. Withers
photographed the quiet dignity of Martin Luther king Jr.
on one of the desegregated buses in Montgomery,
Alabama as well as the violence that marred the strike
of the Sanitation Workers in Memphis, Tennessee. He was
in the midst of the action.
In December of 1956, Ernest Withers
traveled to Montgomery to photograph an important moment
in the struggle for civil rights. |
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For more than a year, black citizens of Montgomery had been
boycotting the city's buses to protect a bus system that not
only forced blacks to the back of the bus, but made them give up
their seats to white people if there were no more seats
available. in 1955, a 43-year-old black seamstress named Rosa
Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man in protest
against Montgomery's harsh segregation laws.
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Her arrest was the catalyst that the
black community needed to organize a protest against
these harsh laws. the bus boycott led directly to the
founding "of the Southern Christian leadership
Conference (SCLC), which became the most influential
voice advocating nonviolent confrontation with white
racism, and to the rise to prominence of the Reverend
Martin Luther King Jr." The bus
boycott case made it to the U.s. Supreme Court where
Alabama's state and local laws requiring segregation on
public transportation were struck down on November 13,
1956. December 21, 1956 was the first day for
desegregated buses in Montgomery. |
Withers was there and rode one of the first buses as he waited
for Martin Luther King Jr. to arrive. When dr. King boarded the
bus along with the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, Withers was there
to document the emotional event.
* * * * *
Withers photos are here presented thanks to the permission
of www.panopt.com
©Ernest C. Withers courtesy of Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA.
Withers photos are here presented thanks to the
permission of
www.panopt.com
©Ernest C. Withers courtesy of Panopticon Gallery, Boston,
MA. * * * * *
AWARDS: National News Association, Best
Photographer of the Year, 1968
Achievements: Photographs appeared in Time, Newsweek,
Ebony, jet, the New York Times, Washington Post, the Chicago
Defender, and the PBS documentary "Eyes on the Prize."
Exhibition: "Let Us March On," The
University of Mississippi, 1987 * * * * *
Ernest Withers
Civil Rights Photographer, Dies at 85—Ernest
C. Withers, a photographer whose voluminous catalog of
arresting black-and-white images illustrates a history of
life in the segregated South in the 1950s and ’60s, from the
civil rights movement to the Beale Street music scene, died
on Monday in Memphis. He was 85. The cause was complications
of a stroke, said his son Joshua, of Los Angeles. . . .
Ernest C. Withers was born on Aug. 7, 1922, in Memphis. He
worked as a photographer in the Army in World War II and
started a studio when he returned. He also worked for about
three years as one of the first nine African-American police
officers in Memphis. Besides his son Joshua, also known as
Billy, Mr. Withers is survived by his wife, Dorothy; two
other sons, Andrew Jerome and Perry, both of Memphis; a
daughter, Rosalind, of West Palm Beach, Fla.; 15
grandchildren; and 8 great-grandchildren. Besides
documenting music and civil rights, Mr. Withers also turned
his lens on the last great years of Negro League baseball.
His work appeared in publications like Time, Newsweek and
The New York Times and has been collected in four books:
“Let Us March On,” “Pictures Tell the Story,” “The Memphis
Blues Again” and “Negro League Baseball.”—Alison
J. Peterson (October 17, 2007)
NYTimes
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updated 4 October 2007
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