OPA-LOCKA, Fla. — Ernest Withers’ images are proof that black people not only lead lives full of bravery and resilience, but also thrive in their toughest times. Flashpoints: The Photography of Ernest Withers, curated by the Ten North Group and on display at the Arts & Recreation Center through August 31, showcases the breadth of Withers’ photography — from the civil rights movement in Memphis to his work documenting musicians as an official Stax photographer. Records for 20 years. Her photos illustrate what makes image-making such an extraordinary task: its potential to preserve history so that future generations know who they are and where they came from.
Loretta McNeir of Birmingham, Alabama, who attended the gallery’s opening on June 16, remembers being 17, sitting in the color-coded waiting room of the doctor’s office for hours to be seen. After what seemed like an endless wait, she worked up the courage to walk into the whites-only waiting room and asked to see the doctor, which she did. McNeir recalled her fearlessness as she admired the bravery of the subjects in Withers’ photos and her courage.
At the exhibition opening, Withers’ daughter, Rosalind Withers, and Joël Díaz, director of the Ten North Group Arts Foundation, also spoke of Withers’ audacity. “There are emblematic people that we [celebrate] every February, but on these walls we hope to share things you don’t know because there’s so much history to share,” said Rosalind, founder of the Withers Collection Museum and Gallery and trustee of the Dr. Ernest C. Withers family. Trust. The collection includes 1.8 million images taken by Ernest and many other photographs that she and her team have yet to sort through. 35 of them are on display at Opa-locka.
Withers’ footage demonstrates that the black history the Florida government is trying to ban students from learning is indisputable and factual.
Withers is often known as “the original civil rights photographer”. He was the only photographer to document the murder trial of Emmett Till in Mississippi; the “Little Rock Nine,” a group of African-American students who first entered white schools in Memphis in 1961; and Martin Luther King, Jr. aboard the first desegregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956. His most famous photograph, “I am a man,” was taken at the start of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike on February 12, 1968, which resulted in two black garbage collectors, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, being crushed to death by a faulty truck two weeks earlier. Workers were striking for better and fairer working conditions. The black-and-white photo shows a group of male sanitation workers lined up holding signs reading “I am a man.” The march, which brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to Memphis, was his last before his death in the Tennessee city on April 4, 1968.
Withers began experimenting with photography using her sister’s camera, but her true passion deepened in elementary school. Although he was too young to be a photographer for the yearbook committee, he dared to take the stage in his school auditorium and photograph Marva Trotter Louis, the wife of boxer Joe Louis, the Halle Berry of l ‘era. He then developed the photo and distributed it to the school. The image made him the most popular kid in the schoolyard.
In 1942, he joined the army and attended the Army Photography School, which would later lead him to photograph white soldiers in Saipan, a Japanese island occupied by the United States. He sent the money back to his wife. Upon returning from World War II, he used the money he received from the GI Bill to open a photo studio in his Memphis neighborhood with the slogan “Pictures Tell Stories”. The studio laid the foundation for his career as a photographer in Memphis, earned him the respect of his community, earned him the trust of notable figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr.
But Withers also lived a secret life as an FBI informant since at least 1968. He met with agents to provide them with information ranging from insider details of the upcoming protests to personal details of leaders of the rights movement. civics. Many wonder if his work as an informant undermines the impact of his photos.
As I looked at Withers’ photo of Moses Wright, Emmett Till’s uncle, on display as part of Flash points, the bravery of the subject and the photographer spoke to me more than this problematic aspect of his life. In the image, Wright, under threat of being lynched, stands up in the courtroom during Emmett Till’s trial to point to the white man he saw taking his nephew from his home. After the judge warned that photography was not allowed in the courtroom, Withers placed his camera on the floor and captured a photo of Wright. This black and white image is the last time Wright was seen before his murder. Without Withers’ willingness to document this moment of courage, we would be missing a vital piece of black history. Withers gave the photograph to Getty Images for worldwide release on the day of the trial; he only received picture credit three years ago, according to Rosalind.
The exhibit also includes a photo of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy sitting on one of Montgomery’s first desegregated buses in 1958. An image of Dr. King is seen standing and holding his hands together, looking out at the crowd getting ready to speak in favor of the Memphis Sanitation Strikers at Mason Temple in Memphis in 1968. Another photo shows Ernie Banks, Larry Doby and Jackie Robinson standing side by side in front of a dugout at Martin Stadium in Memphis in 1953. An image by Ike Turner playing his guitar and Tina Turner singing at Club Paradise in 1962 – her shoulder covered in fresh bruises from beatings by Ike – are placed with pictures of Elvis and BB King. Pictured is a photo of three of the Memphis 13 (Michael Wills, son of AW Wills; Harry Williams; and Dwania Kyles, daughter of Reverend Billy Kyles) smiling outside a car window on their first day into the schools Memphis elementary.
A photo of the Overton Park Zoo entrance with a sign that read ‘No white people are allowed in the zoo today’ inspired Rosliand to move from her South Florida home to Memphis to regain the confidence of his father. She is now in charge of over a million photos her father took after his death in 2007. The photo captures the day of the year when black people were allowed into the zoo, i.e. when the animals had their cages cleaned, which made it impossible for visitors to see many of them. Black children and adults walk behind the sign in the background of the photo.
“I was really torn. I wanted to stay in Florida. My husband was from the Bahamas, so we had a really good life to take on something so serious and a lot to give up,” Rosliand told me. “So I’m went to my dad’s archive, and as I went through it, it was overwhelming. But this photo just looked at me and just hit me in the forehead, and I said, ‘I gotta do what it takes.” They tell us every day that we have no trace of who we are. They don’t know we exist, and here I have all my history, 60 years.
Withers’ photographs, in Rosalind’s words, are truth and power. As Withers said in the PBS documentary The image taker (2023): “You have to have your own vision.”
“You’ll have to have a sense of morality, of honesty,” Withers continued. “Is it true? Does it hurt? What is it for? No one can tell you your moral character. “Give yourself the qualities to be what you are and not what you are not” , said my father, because if you are not what you are, you are what you are not.
