Départ d'ERNEST WITHERS

Départ d'ERNEST WITHERS

Ernest Withers, who is named as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, passed away in Memphis at the age of 85. Withers took pictures of the most important artists in Memphis like Elvis, Rufus Thomas, BB King, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin en followed Dr. Martin Luther King in the 50s and 60s and other important people of the civil rights movements. One of the well known pictures of Withers is from a young Elvis with BB King. Withers started his career as a freelancer and worked for important newspapers like Newsweek, Time Magazine and the New York Times.
source

http://www.bartemon.net/news/index.php?val=819_depart+ernest+withers


Ernest C. Withers

He has had a wide-ranging career, having served as a county constable, as an agent with the Tennessee State Alcoholic Beverage Commission and as one of the first black police officers in the City of Memphis. But it is as a photojournalist that he has earned a legendary reputation. In 1943, he entered the Army and convinced his commanding officer to send him to the Army photo school. Upon leaving the Army, he began making portraits, wedding photographs and parties – then took photographic assignments from the Tri-State Defender, the Chicago Defender and other black newspapers across the nation. In the 1950s and 1960s, Withers covered many civil rights events in the South, including the Emmett Till murder case; the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.; school integration in Memphis and Clinton, Tenn.; the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott and the Mack Charles Parker lynching. He was on the scene at the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Withers also covered the killings of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss. At the funeral of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Miss., he was beaten by a police officer and arrested. In 1988, Withers was inducted into the Black Press Hall of Fame.

source

http://civilrightsandthepress.syr.edu/panelist.html