civilrights

A new documentary explores the life and works of Ernest Withers, an iconic civil rights photographer who was revealed to be an FBI informant after he died.

A Detroit-area skating rink is under fire for barring entry to a Black teenager after its facial recognition cameras misidentified her as a woman who was banned from the property. It has further ignited debate on the ethics of using facial recognition technology in the United States.

Every Sunday, we bring together a collection of easy-reading articles from analytical to how-to to photo-features in no particular order that did not make our regular daily coverage. Enjoy!

The Library of Congress recently acquired the archives of civil rights photographer Bob Adelman. An anonymous donor gifted the collection, an archive that contains some of the most outstanding images ever captured of the Civil Rights Movement.

One of the great civil rights movement photographers has died. Bob Adelman found dead with a head wound this past weekend in his Miami Beach home.

50 years ago, civil rights photographer Matt Herron documented the Selma to Montgomery marches that highlighted racial injustices in …

Puerto Rican and Italian photographer Benedict Fernandez' images from the 1960s are incredible... but you've probably never seen them before. Until recently, many of his powerful photographs remained tucked away in his archive.

Fortunately, that is all changing this month thanks to an exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center.

The San Diego Police Department is in hot water with photographers and First Amendment rights advocates everywhere this week over the way two of their officers handled a situation this last Saturday.

The story and the video that goes with it -- which went viral after being shared by the website Photography is Not a Crime -- shows one of the officers violently arresting a man for exercising his right to record the officer during the course of his duties.

The National Press Photographers Association announced this week that it will be joining a major lawsuit filed against NYC and the NYPD for civil rights violations during the Occupy Wall Street protests.

There are plenty of stories out there of photographers allegedly being mistreated at the hands of the police; unfortunately, this mistreatment often includes the destruction of any evidence of the altercation. But the New Jersey ACLU is hoping that their new Police Tape app helps people more discretely record these interactions for future use in court.

Earlier we reported on two separate cases where video evidence of police shot by random citizens wound up being crucial in the exoneration of photographers arrested while doing their job. Well, appropriately enough, the US Department of Justice just recently came out in defense of the right to record police while they are on duty.

Some of the most raw, intimate and iconic photographs of the Civil Rights Movement were taken by photojournalist Ernest C. Withers. He was present during the entire Emmett Till trial, when Martin Luther King, Jr. rode the first desegregated bus, and in the hotel room where Dr. King was assassinated. Many civil rights activists would cite Withers' images as key to informing America of their plight and fight for equality.

But recent reports by Memphis publication The Commercial Appeal indicate that Withers, who passed away in 2007, was also informing the FBI -- on their payroll.

The Commercial Appeal posted documents indicating that while Withers was photographing key members of the movement, he was also acting eyes and ears for a now inoperative wing of the FBI that heavily tracked civil rights activists.

Due to a clerical error revealing Withers' informant number, reporters at The Commercial Appeal were able to connect Withers' name to informant activities.