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Author: Preston Lauterbach Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393247937 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
The little-known story of an iconic photographer, whose work captured—and influenced—a critical moment in American history. Who was Ernest Withers? Most Americans may not know the name, but they do know his photographs. Withers took some of the most legendary images of the 1950s and ’60s: Martin Luther King, Jr., riding a newly integrated bus in Montgomery, Alabama; Emmett Till’s uncle pointing an accusatory finger across the courtroom at one of his nephew’s killers; scores of African-American protestors, carrying a forest of signs reading "I am a man." But while he enjoyed unparalleled access to the inner workings of the civil rights movement, Withers was working as an informant for the FBI. In this gripping narrative history, Preston Lauterbach examines the complicated political and economic forces that informed Withers’s seeming betrayal of the people he photographed. Withers traversed disparate worlds, from Black Power meetings to raucous Memphis nightclubs where Elvis brushed shoulders with B.B. King. He had a gift for capturing both dramatic historic moments and intimate emotional ones, and it may have been this attention to nuance that made Withers both a brilliant photographer and an essential asset to the FBI. Written with similar nuance, Bluff City culminates with a riveting account of the 1968 riot that ended in violence just a few days before Dr. King’s death. Brimming with new information and featuring previously unpublished and rare photographs from the Withers archive not seen in over fifty years, Bluff City grapples with the legacy of a man whose actions—and artistry—make him an enigmatic and fascinating American figure.
Author: Preston Lauterbach Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393247937 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
The little-known story of an iconic photographer, whose work captured—and influenced—a critical moment in American history. Who was Ernest Withers? Most Americans may not know the name, but they do know his photographs. Withers took some of the most legendary images of the 1950s and ’60s: Martin Luther King, Jr., riding a newly integrated bus in Montgomery, Alabama; Emmett Till’s uncle pointing an accusatory finger across the courtroom at one of his nephew’s killers; scores of African-American protestors, carrying a forest of signs reading "I am a man." But while he enjoyed unparalleled access to the inner workings of the civil rights movement, Withers was working as an informant for the FBI. In this gripping narrative history, Preston Lauterbach examines the complicated political and economic forces that informed Withers’s seeming betrayal of the people he photographed. Withers traversed disparate worlds, from Black Power meetings to raucous Memphis nightclubs where Elvis brushed shoulders with B.B. King. He had a gift for capturing both dramatic historic moments and intimate emotional ones, and it may have been this attention to nuance that made Withers both a brilliant photographer and an essential asset to the FBI. Written with similar nuance, Bluff City culminates with a riveting account of the 1968 riot that ended in violence just a few days before Dr. King’s death. Brimming with new information and featuring previously unpublished and rare photographs from the Withers archive not seen in over fifty years, Bluff City grapples with the legacy of a man whose actions—and artistry—make him an enigmatic and fascinating American figure.
Author: Marc Perrusquia Publisher: Melville House ISBN: 1612194400 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 368
Book Description
Only Ernest Withers, a key figure in the civil rights movement, could have delivered such iconic photographs—and the kind of information the FBI wanted . . . Renowned photographer Ernest Withers captured some of the most stunning moments of the civil rights era—from the age-defining snapshot of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., riding one of the first integrated buses in Montegomery, to the haunting photo of Emmett Till’s great-uncle pointing an accusing finger at his nephew’s killers. He was trusted and beloved by King’s inner circle, and had a front row seat to history . . . but few people know that Withers was also an informant for the FBI. Memphis journalist Marc Perrusquia broke the story of Withers’s secret life after a long investigation culminating in a landmark lawsuit against the government to release hundreds of once-classified FBI documents. Those files confirmed that, from 1958 to 1976, Withers helped the Bureau monitor pillars of the movement including Dr. Martin Luther King and others, as well as dozens of civil rights foot soldiers. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of King’s assasination, A Spy in Canaan explores the life, complex motivations, and legacy of this fascinating figure Ernest Withers, as well as the dark shadow that era’s culture of surveillance has cast on our own time. Includes an 8-page, black-and-white photo insert.
Author: Charles Trudeau Publisher: Independently Published ISBN: 9781794267657 Category : Photography Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
In September of 2010, the Memphis Commercial Appeal published an article written by journalist Marc Perrusquia, breaking open a dam of long held government secrets. Hidden in a seemingly insignificant declassified report that had been insufficiently redacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Perrusquia discovered that Ernest Withers had been a confidential informant for the FBI. But what made the revelation extraordinary within the humid enclaves of Memphis and the Deep South was that Withers was also a nationally-renowned civil rights photographer. As a friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent civil rights leaders, Withers had intimate access to the kind of highly sensitive information the FBI coveted. Believing that the black civil rights movement took its cues from communist influences, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sanctioned regular cash payments to be distributed amongst a select group of black informants who were willing to spy on fellow demonstrators. Withers was one of them. Using his position as an African American insider and professional cameraman, the typically affable Withers covertly provided the FBI with countless photos of civil rights activists along with intelligence outlining their associations, movements, and future strategies. Conferring often with his FBI handler in Memphis, TN, Special Agent William H. Lawrence, Withers was regularly paid to infiltrate the meetings and organizations led by his closest allies. The following pages contain exact copies of the declassified documents that Marc Perrusquia, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and their team of attorneys obtained in 2012 through the Federal Court system. These documents have been organized based on the FBI's own notated filing dates. Undeniably, there are additional documents that did not make it into this book, either because the FBI failed to declassify them or because they have not yet been obtained from the National Archives in Washington D.C. However, every effort was made as of this book's publication date to include all currently available FBI records related to Withers. Furthermore, the editors worked tirelessly to include the least redacted versions of several duplicate documents. It is the editors' hope that the following pages inform, inspire, and empower the citizenry to form their own opinions regarding this historically significant collaboration between Ernest Columbus Withers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Author: Marc Perrusquia Publisher: Melville House ISBN: 1612193412 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 377
Book Description
Only Ernest Withers, a key figure in the civil rights movement, could have delivered such iconic photographs—and the kind of information the FBI wanted . . . Renowned photographer Ernest Withers captured some of the most stunning moments of the civil rights era—from the age-defining snapshot of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., riding one of the first integrated buses in Montegomery, to the haunting photo of Emmett Till’s great-uncle pointing an accusing finger at his nephew’s killers. He was trusted and beloved by King’s inner circle, and had a front row seat to history . . . but few people know that Withers was also an informant for the FBI. Memphis journalist Marc Perrusquia broke the story of Withers’s secret life after a long investigation culminating in a landmark lawsuit against the government to release hundreds of once-classified FBI documents. Those files confirmed that, from 1958 to 1976, Withers helped the Bureau monitor pillars of the movement including Dr. Martin Luther King and others, as well as dozens of civil rights foot soldiers. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of King’s assasination, A Spy in Canaan explores the life, complex motivations, and legacy of this fascinating figure Ernest Withers, as well as the dark shadow that era’s culture of surveillance has cast on our own time. Includes an 8-page, black-and-white photo insert.
Author: Alexandra Natapoff Publisher: NYU Press ISBN: 0814758584 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
2010 Honorable Mention, Silver Gavel Award, American Bar Association Uncovers the powerful and problematic practice of snitching to reveal disturbing truths about how American justice works Albert Burrell spent thirteen years on death row for a murder he did not commit. Atlanta police killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston during a misguided raid on her home. After being released by Chicago prosecutors, Darryl Moore—drug dealer, hit man, and rapist—returned home to rape an eleven-year-old girl. Such tragedies are consequences of snitching—police and prosecutors offering deals to criminal offenders in exchange for information. Although it is nearly invisible to the public, criminal snitching has invaded the American legal system in risky and sometimes shocking ways. Snitching is the first comprehensive analysis of this powerful and problematic practice, in which informant deals generate unreliable evidence, allow criminals to escape punishment, endanger the innocent, compromise the integrity of police work, and exacerbate tension between police and poor urban residents. Driven by dozens of real-life stories and debacles, the book exposes the social destruction that snitching can cause in high-crime African American neighborhoods, and how using criminal informants renders our entire penal process more secretive and less fair. Natapoff also uncovers the far-reaching legal, political, and cultural significance of snitching: from the war on drugs to hip hop music, from the FBI’s mishandling of its murderous mafia informants to the new surge in white collar and terrorism informing. She explains how existing law functions and proposes new reforms. By delving into the secretive world of criminal informants, Snitching reveals deep and often disturbing truths about the way American justice really works.
Author: Maurice Berger Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300121318 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
"In collaboration with: Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland Baltimore County, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C."
Author: Ben Kamin Publisher: MSU Press ISBN: 1609173430 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
A tragic landmark in the civil rights movement, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis is best known for what occurred there on April 4, 1968. As he stood on the balcony of Room 306, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, ending a golden age of nonviolent resistance, and sparking riots in more than one hundred cities. Formerly a seedy, segregated motel, and prior to that a brothel, the motel quickly achieved the status of national shrine. The motel attracts a variety of pilgrims—white politicians seeking photo ops, aging civil rights leaders, New Age musicians, and visitors to its current incarnation, the National Civil Rights Museum. A moving and emotional account that comprises a panorama of voices, Room 306 is an important oral history unlike any other.
Author: Gene Roberts Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0307455947 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 546
Book Description
An unprecedented examination of how news stories, editorials and photographs in the American press—and the journalists responsible for them—profoundly changed the nation’s thinking about civil rights in the South during the 1950s and ‘60s. Roberts and Klibanoff draw on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen—black and white—revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings that compelled its citizens to act. Meticulously researched and vividly rendered, The Race Beat is an extraordinary account of one of the most calamitous periods in our nation’s history, as told by those who covered it.
Author: Preston Lauterbach
Author: Preston Lauterbach
Author: Marc Perrusquia
Author: Charles Trudeau
Author: Marc Perrusquia
Author: Ernest C. Withers
Author: Alexandra Natapoff
Author: Richard Cahan
Author: Maurice Berger
Author: Ben Kamin
Author: Gene Roberts