Photography Archives

April 7, 2012January 18, 2021

Martin Luther King National Day of Mourning

President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed Sunday, April 7, 1968, as a national day of mourning for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I wrote back in January about a class project at Ohio University that put me in an ideal position to cover the event in front of the John Calhoun Baker University Center as both a student and photo editor of The Ohio University Post.

Last month, I got an email from Bob Stewart who was looking for photographs of the Day of Mourning for a video to mark the date. He reached out for a mutual friend, Tom Hodson, who worked on the OU Post when I was photo editor in 1967-68. Tom said I had probably the best overall collection of photos of the formal ceremony and the sit-in that followed.

We traded emails for a few day, then I sent him way more pictures than I thought he could ever use. Much to my surprise, in a day or so he produced this video that was better than I could have ever made myself.

Here’s some background on the images Bob used in the video.

Students filled the street

Hundreds, if not thousands, of students filled the street in front of the student union and spilled out onto the Main Green.

OU President Vernon Alden spoke

The Kennedyesque OU President Vernon Alden, center, wearing a black armband, spoke.

Religious leaders were present

All of the local faiths were represented.

Crowd was solemn

I was struck by how seriously everyone took the ceremony.

A salt and pepper group

The front ranks were heavily represented by black students, many wearing signs that said “In Mourning.”

Not your normal gathering

Most of the white students in the back were dressed more casually, but this wasn’t your normal student gathering.

The mood was solemn and there was no laughing or calling across the group.

I had been to many protests, concerts and gatherings on the Main Green, but this one had a feeling of dignity about it.

It brought to mind the spontaneous gathering the day of the Kent State shootings.

Instead of being your normal batch of campus radicals, you had a mixture of jocks, sorority girls, frat boys, professors and townspeople all coming together to try to make sense of what had happened.

The racial mix on this day was probably proportional to the school’s makeup.

The ceremony ended

After the formal ceremony ended, the crowd started to disperse. Many of them walked a block north to Court and Union, the main intersection in town.

A small group of students sit down

A small group of students sat down in the middle of the intersection.

The crowd grows

More and more students joined the sit-in. Again, uncharacteristically, this wasn’t your normal group of rowdy drunk students who block this intersection on the first warm spring night after a cold winter. You can tell from the expressions that this is a serious occasion.

All of downtown is blocked

Finally, the whole intersection for at least a half-block in all directions was full of students.

James Steele addresses crowd

James Steele, who was one of the speakers at the formal ceremony, addresses the crowd.

I should explain something before we get to the part where things turn ugly. Ohio University was founded in 1804, so the local police have a lot of experience in dealing with unruly students.

The usual procedure was to see if they’d break up on their own. If not, a half-dozen cops would show up in “bats and hats,” somebody would read the riot act over a bullhorn, then there would be some pushing and shoving, followed by everybody heading back on campus.

Rarely were any arrests made. Some bricks and bottles might get thrown and a few windows could get broken, but I never heard of any looting of the downtown stores. The police didn’t even use teargas at any event I covered until the spring of 1970.

Captain Charlie Cochran didn’t follow script

Athens Police Captain Charlie Cochran, always a hothead, didn’t follow the script. Instead of giving the normal order to disperse and having enough officers present to enforce it, he waded into the demonstrators and literally threw them off “my street.”

Seriously misread crowd

Charlie didn’t realize this wasn’t your normal unfocused mob of kids out for a good time. These folks had seen their national leader gunned down. They were hurting and looking for a place to direct their anger. They didn’t take kindly to being manhandled on a day of mourning.

Cooler head prevails

A friend grabbed the fellow who had been thrown to the ground just before he could retaliate. If the two had tangled, I’m convinced the whole crowd would have joined in and someone would have been seriously hurt.

Chief, James Whalen works out compromise

Before things could get out of hand, Police Chief Fred James, left, and James Whalen, university vice president for administrative affairs, right, worked out a compromise.

The chief agreed to allow the students to continue the demonstration for a “reasonable amount of time” and the students agreed to leave peacefully after that.

Charlie didn’t look happy to have me part of this confab, but this isn’t the first nor the last time that we’d have an awkward moment together. I’m not sure who the concerned citizen in the middle was.

Before long, intersection open

The bulk of the crowd retreated to the corners, then, after a “reasonable time,” everyone else moved on.

“Where do we go from here?”

A writer in The Athena, the university yearbook, penned, “The King is Dead! It echoed in microphones; and hearts were horrified throughout the campus, country, and world. Martin Luther King Jr. started a dream, but a bullet couldn’t shatter it. Now, where will his dream go?

“We talk about the coup d’etats of South America and the street riots in Europe, but when will we stop destroying our Kennedys and Luthers? Let us not scatter after the black arm bands have been put away.”

Well, that’s not exactly deathless prose, but it – and the scraps of posters in the middle of the street – raise an important question: “Where do we go from here?” Based on the headlines I worked on later, it doesn’t look like we learned a lot from 1968.

Photo gallery of King Memorial Day

I’ve included a wide variety of photos. If you were there that day, you might want to share them with your grandkids. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

Post and Athena folks, I’m pretty sure I’ve spotted Clarence Page, Joyce Halasa, Ed Pieratt, Todd Schofer and Tom Price. (Now that I think of it, I think this is a class I flunked because I didn’t turn in an assignment. Wonder if I could submit this for extra credit 43 years late.)

2013 Exhibit Catalog

In 2013, I was invited to put together an exhibit of the Day of Mourning photos for Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc., in conjunction with the College of Arts and Sciences, the Athens Historical Society and Museum, the Foster and Helen Cornwell Lecture Series, University College, the Campus Involvement Center, The Athens Messenger and The Post.

Here is a catalog of selected photos in the exhibit.

March 31, 2012March 29, 2021

Ohio University Post

I’m going to stray off the Cape Girardeau reservation to run some photos of folks I worked with at The Ohio University Post in Athens, Ohio, in 1967 and 1968. April Fool’s Day is as good a time as ever to publish them. The student newspaper is celebrating its 100th year with a special alumni reunion April 13-15. Despite what some folks might think, I was NOT around in 1912 when the paper launched as The Green and White.

The event organizers are looking for photos of old staffers (old as in age AND as in former). You regular readers can tune out for a day while I wallow in Ohio nostalgia for a day or so. Click on any photo to make it larger.

The OU Post saved my college career

I was woefully unprepared for life in a big, impersonal university when I transferred in as a junior. It was a good thing my first stop after unpacking my bags in the dorm room I shared with two freshmen was The Post.

See, regular students in the Fine Arts program worked in gang darkrooms using chemicals mixed by other students who may or may not care if they got it right. The darkroom equipment was old and abused. I was used to working in my own darkroom where everything was well-maintained and everything had a place.

Post photo editor Walt Harrison saw my portfolio and hired me on the spot. He saw I was an experienced newspaper photographer, but didn’t know that I was a lousy technician with no formal training. When you print for newspaper publication, for example, you print differently than you do for prints that hang on the wall. Newspaper photos are made up of tiny dots that transfer ink to the equivalent of splintery toilet paper. The process causes the image to pick up contrast, so you have to print “flat” when you send it back to the engravers or it won’t reproduce properly.

Tiny, but efficient darkroom

I couldn’t understand why my instructors kept kicking my prints back for being flat. Fortunately, the folks on The Post and the Athena yearbook gave me the help and criticism I needed to understand what I needed to do. One night I went to cover a routine assignment, then made the first “good” print of my career to that point. A light went off in my head and I suddenly got it. My work steadily improved from that point as I grew in confidence. I cleaned up in the Ohio College Newspaper Association contest that year because most student photographers don’t have as much hard news in their portfolios.

When Walt stepped down as photo editor, I took over his job. I didn’t even know it was a paid position until I got a check at the end of the school year. It didn’t make any difference to me: all I knew was that I had a darkroom shared with only two or three other shooters, a boundless supply of film and paper, and a bunch of accomplished photographers who weren’t shy about critiquing my work. I learned more from them than from any of my classes.

“Radical” Editor Andy Alexander

There are lots of photos of Andy Alexander because I had a freelance job from The Dayton Daily News to illustrate a story former Postie reporter Carol Towarnicky wrote about him. (I always called Carol “CT” because I couldn’t spell, let alone pronounce Towarnicky.) CT’s story said “Andy Alexander never marched in an anti-war demonstration. But he has marched through a few rice paddies, which would explain why the ex-Eagle Scout something talks about the United States in four-letter obscenities. And why the short-haired radical sometimes disparages the New Left.

Because Andy Alexander has a jump on most college students. He’s been there. He’s seen Vietnam. And it appalled him.” Here’s CT’s story on Andy Alexander.

Andy financed a trip to Vietnam the past summer out of his own pocket. “I went to make a name for myself,” he explained matter-of-factly. “I doubt I found any newsman who was there out of dedication… Everyone wanted to make it big, fast. Some of them died trying.” He spent two summers reporting for the Melbourne (Australia) Herald. A year before he found himself in Prague, reporting the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.

I liked Andy. The Dayton Daily News might think he was a radical, but I found him a solid, steady pro who ran the student newspaper as well as any paper I’ve worked for.

Clarence Page like you don’t see on TV

When you see Chicago Tribune Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page as a frequent talking head on the news shows, he doesn’t look like the Clarence I knew. Here, Clarance points what I hope is a toy gun at Mark Roth. Unflappable editor Andy, with his back to the camera, ignores the tomfoolery going on behind him.

Clarence was a solid reporter who was always ready to push the boundaries. One night he used the F-word in a story and The Athens Messenger’s production crew almost didn’t publish the paper that night. The fact that The OU Post has been in existence was in spite of Clarence, not because of him.

I heard Clarence pontificating about something on NPR the other afternoon and had the same sense of unease as when I heard that classmate Jim Stone was trying to explain science to politicians and that Bill Clinton had been elected president. I mean, aren’t they supposed to have adults doing those jobs?

Expectant fathers

This was the first edition of the new school year to come rolling off The Messenger’s presses in 1968. Jesse Rotman, Bill Sievert and Tom Hodson were pacing the floor like fathers-to-be in a delivery room.

Ohio University Post photo gallery

Here’s a collection of photos of Ohio University Post staffers at work (mostly). Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

March 22, 2012

“Avoid Cliche Shot”

I worked with a sports editor once that would type up an assignment to shoot the most hackneyed, dull, uninteresting, contrived situation in the world, then, invariably, he would add the line that drove my photographers nuts: “Avoid Cliche Shot.”

The guy must have played football before they invented helmets because no matter how much I talked to him, he couldn’t grasp the concept that a cliched situation is going to produce, at best, a technically proficient cliche shot. GRRRRRRRR!!!!

Grip ‘n’ grins taboo

At The Palm Beach Post, we managed to all but kill the “three-men-and-a-piece-of paper-grip-and-grin” shots, check-passings and ribbon cuttings by convincing organizations that photos of stuff REALLY happening would be more interesting. If the check was going to be used to feed kids at a day care center, we would go cover that instead of lining up some suits holding a fake big check and mugging the camera..

Since I was paid by the picture at The Missourian, my standards were a lot lower, but I still tried to get something not too embarrassing out of the obligatory school opening promo. At least I managed to drag Mayor J. Hugh Logan and Police Chief Irvin E. Beard outside to actually put up one of the 14,000 posters that were going to be plastered all over town as part of the 35th annual school safety drive.

As I read that, I have a hard time believing that there were 14,000 utility poles in Cape. I mean, the population of Cape was only about 25,000 on April 30, 1967, when this photo ran. Not only did they have 14,000 posters, but the photo caption said you could go by the police department to pick up a bumper sticker if you were so inclined.

Police Safety Review

I thought this publication was really cool. Follow the link to see a summary, then click on the links on THAT page to see some cool, gory drawings. We kids of the 60s were taught there were serious consequences to not following the rules, not just including having it written down in your permanent record.

March 17, 2012March 17, 2012

Downtown Cape Panorama

This panorama photo is made up of six aerial photos taken April 17, 2010. It ranges from William Street on the left to north of Broadway on the right. The western boundary is just beyond Fountain St. The gray parking lot at the top left is Cape’s City Hall on Independence

Most panoramas are taken from one spot and the camera swiveled on a tripod. In this case, the “tripod” was Ernie Chiles’ plane flying along at about 100 mph. Because the angle was constantly changing, there is some freaky distortions of the buildings on the edges of the photo, particularly St. Vincent’s Cathedral on the left. Still, it’s a neat effect. I made it larger than usual, so you may have to scroll around to see it all.

Broadway Theater was a panorama

When I shot the interior of the Broadway theater, I stitched together six photos to show the whole room. It’s a way to cover a wide area if you don’t have a super wideangle lens.

The super-secret assignment

I haven’t fooled around much with panoramas because they were a real pain back in the days of film and paper prints. One day The Big Boss called me in and said he needed some aerial photography done for a super secret project for someone he wouldn’t name. I wasn’t supposed to discuss the assignment. Some days you ask questions. Some days you salute and say, “Yes Sir.” This was the latter.

In 2012, you’d call up Google Earth and have what you wanted in minutes, but this was in the days when the Google Earth guys were still wearing diapers, so that wasn’t an option.

The chopper ride was the fun part

So, I chartered a helicopter, took the door off, put on a safety harness, stood on the skid and leaned out into space so I could shoot straight down as much as possible. It was cool. Because the boss wanted a couple block area covered and in close detail, we flew multiple grids and I banged off a couple hundred frames. That was the easy and fun part.

When I got into the darkroom, though, I realized that I wasn’t as smart as Photoshop is today. No matter how straight to the ground I had tried to hold the camera, there was always a slight angle that kept the prints from lining up.

The next day, I spread out enough prints on The Big Boss’s floor to just above cover the whole shebang. I explained the technical problem, then I handed him two sheets of aerial photos of the area from the county’s tax assessor. He said I wouldn’t need to muck with making the prints; the county photos would do fine. (He was pleased enough with my ingenious solution that he didn’t think to ask why I hadn’t done that in the first place.)

So, what was the whole super secret deal about? I have no idea to this day. From time to time I’d drive through the neighborhood to see if any changes were taking place, but nothing ever sprouted up. I don’t know if the project was scuttled or what happened. At least I got a neat chopper ride out of it.

Other downtown shots

Downtown Cape Girardeau from the air and ground (includes other links)

Common Pleas Courthouse from the air

St. Vincent’s Cathedral and downtown

Tag: Photography