Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts

Saturday, July 29, 2023

What these men behind a historic photo taken 47 years ago say about race in Boston then and now

 Via WCVB Boston

By Brittany Johnson

July 28, 2023





BOSTON —

The two men who were part of a single historic photograph that captured the essence of racial tension in Boston in 1976 are reflecting on how far the city has come and how far it has to go in order to achieve racial justice.

Ted Landsmark and Stanley Forman met up with WCVB's Brittany Johnson at Boston's City Hall Plaza, where the incident took place.

As Landsmark walked across the plaza, he reflected back to the day a group of protestors attacked him. Landsmark was kicked, hit in the face, and suffered a broken nose. One of the protesters swung the American flag in his direction to use it as a weapon.

"Ironically, on the day when the assault took place, I was on my way to a meeting in City Hall to discuss how the city could open up more job opportunities to contractors of color and to workers of color in the city," Landsmark, who was a young lawyer at the time of the attack, told Johnson.

"I had no expectation that I would encounter a crowd of anti-busing demonstrators," he said. "My mind was fixed on creating opportunities and jobs for young people in the city."

During this time period, Boston was fraught with discrimination and uproar over court-ordered school desegregation.


black and white photograph of a white male using the American Flag to attack African-American man Ted Landsmark during an anti-bussing protest in Boston, 1976
Stanley Forman


"Boston half a century ago was fraught with all kinds of discrimination," Landsmark explained. "It affected housing. It affected the police department. It affected schools. It affected our transportation system. Redlining had been in place and had made it virtually impossible for African-Americans to be able to live where they wanted to live in the city. The transportation system was one that discriminated in terms of employment. It was a place that was very uncomfortable for people of color, and African Americans in particular, to live and to have opportunities for career growth and opportunities to really take advantage of all of the educational opportunities that exist within the city."

With the racial climate at the forefront, Landsmark said he knew the attack could transcend into a way for him to speak to larger issues of the civil rights movement.

"From the moment I was attacked in City Hall Plaza, I knew that I was going to be placed in a position to have an opportunity to talk about the issues of race and of access to jobs and education that existed within this region. It was clear to me that people of color, and African-Americans in particular, had been discriminated against for generations, and that at that moment, there was an opportunity for me to have a platform to address those issues in the context of bussing as it was taking place in the city," he said.

The Pulitzer Prize photograph, titled "The Soiling of Old Glory," was taken by photojournalist and former NewsCenter 5 videographer Stanley Forman.

"The day I took that picture, I didn't get — I tell everybody, I didn't get the impact of it. I mean, I ran down and continued on the coverage. They left here (City Plaza), and I just followed them," F0rman said.

"When did you realize the magnitude of what you had?" Johnson asked Forman.

"I think when we were in the office, and the editors were looking at it, and I was looking at it, and they were so frightened it would start a race war," Forman replied. "I think that's when I realized how bad it was. It took a few hours for me to catch on."

"What Stanley and I have realized over time is that the photograph provides an incentive, a platform for us to raise issues around race in the city, not only in terms of what happened in the 1970s but more importantly in terms of what is happening now as we look forward with new generations of individuals who are addressing these same issues of racial justice," said Landsmark.

Landsmark, a long-time civil rights activist and now a professor of public policy at Northeastern University, said Boston has come a long way but said work still needs to be done to achieve racial justice.

"There's been a great deal of change in the city, primarily in the public sector. Our city council is elected and is composed primarily of people of color. For the first time, we have a person of color as mayor within the city, and we've made significant advancement in many of our public sector areas, but we have a huge amount of work to do in the private sector. Our financial services area, our high-tech companies, our universities, our biotech firms all need to do considerably more to open up job opportunities for young people of color in and around the city and need to use their private sector resources and capital to develop job training programs and career opportunities for people within the city," said Landsmark.

"In 2023, did you think you'd still be speaking about achieving racial justice?" Johnson asked Landsmark.

"I was perhaps naïve in believing that by 2023 we would be much further along not only in Boston but nationally in terms of achieving racial justice, in terms of achieving opportunities for African-Americans to be able to be professionals and homeowners and to maintain stability within their families. And it's a little disappointing that we're still struggling today with many of the same issues that we faced in 1976 when I was attacked on City Hall Plaza," he said.

Just down from City Hall Plaza, the NAACP convention was getting underway.

It has been over 40 years since the annual convention was held in the Commonwealth, and Landsmark hopes that the return of the national convention to the city will serve as a tide change in Boston's history.

"Boston is definitely ready to take advantage of this moment, in part because our elected officials have embraced social change, in part because the demographics of who is living in the city have changed so significantly, and in part, because we understand that the future of the city is dependent on the success of people of color in the greater Boston area," Landsmark said.


WCVB
Ted Landsmark and Stanley Forman


The message of the 114th National Convention is "Thriving Together," which is something Landsmark and Forman know a thing or two about, as they are forever attached to the story of "The Soil of Old Glory."

"People have asked me whether I thought Stanley should have intervened somehow," Landsmark shared, as he was standing beside Forman. "And I think that in doing his job of taking the photo at that moment, he contributed to the kind of dialog that we need to have not only in Boston but around the country, around the implications of hate and racial violence and what it is we need to think about doing to eliminate both."


Sunday, July 23, 2023

"And that moment was captured in a famous photograph where a young person was trying to kill me with the American flag.”

 Via WBUR

July 23, 2023


Civil rights activist Ted Landsmark reflects on Boston's reputation for racism — and how the city has and hasn't changed.

“I was on my way to an affirmative action meeting with city officials to try to open more jobs for people of color and minority contractors in the city of Boston,” Landsmark says. “I was attacked by a group of anti-busing demonstrators. And that moment was captured in a famous photograph where a young person was trying to kill me with the American flag.”



In this photograph titled "The Soiling of Old Glory," Joseph Rakes assaults lawyer and civil rights activist Ted Landsmark with a flagpole bearing the American flag






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Saturday, August 27, 2022

Coming in October: See ‘Life Magazine and the Power of Photography’ at the MFA Boston

 Via Boston.com

August 26, 2022

3 frames of woman welders at work in 1943
Flame Burner Ann Zarik, taken in 1943. Photo by Margaret Bourke-White, Life picture collection

The museum displays photos from the archives of the publication that shaped American photojournalism.

The Museum of Fine Arts will display dozens of original photos from Life magazine’s archives in “Life Magazine and the Power of Photography” this fall, highlighting Life’s cultural impact and the way its photos shaped American media throughout the mid-twentieth century.

Life printed in some capacity from 1883 through 2000. Published independently until 1936, Life was a light entertainment magazine heavy on illustrations, featuring the likes of Charles Dana Gibson and Norman Rockwell. Publisher Henry Luce bought the publication in 1936, turning it into the notable American photographic magazine we know it as today. The first of its kind, it defined photojournalism and chronicled historic moments of the last century, like the moon landing and the Birmingham civil rights demonstrations. Life was the first to publish Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “V-J Day in Times Square.”

The exhibit will display original photos alongside objects from Life’s paper archives like assignment outlines, memos, and layout drafts, taking a close look at how Life photo essays were constructed from assignment all the way through to completion. In peering behind the scenes of the magazine’s creation, the exhibit also examines how Life shaped conversations around topics like race, war, technology, and national identity. 

“Life Magazine and the Power of Photography” also displays three immersive contemporary works interspersed throughout the exhibit—a multimedia installation by Alfredo Jaar, screen prints and photos by Alexandra Bell, and a new commission by Julia Wachtel all examine modern news media and themes like implicit biases.

The exhibit features the work of photographers like Margaret Bourke-White, Larry Burrows, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Frank Dandridge, Yousuf Karsh, Gordon Parks, and W. Eugene Smith, and runs Oct. 9 through Jan. 16 in the Ann and Graham Gund Gallery.


Related: Monroe Gallery Exhibition "The LIFE Photographers"

LIFE Magazine Show Opens At Monroe Gallery Of Photography

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Stanley Forman, photographer behind iconic Pulitzer-winning images hangs up his lens

 Via The Forward

January 12, 2022


photo of  Joseph Rakes (L) uses an American flag to attack civil rights lawyer and activist Ted Landsmark (R) during protests over the Boston busing crisis, Apr. 5, 1976
‘The Soiling of Old Glory’ won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Spot Photography. In it teen Joseph Rakes (L) uses an American flag to attack civil rights lawyer and activist Ted Landsmark (R) during protests over the Boston busing crisis, Apr. 5, 1976.


Gallery photographer Stanley Forman has retired after 55 years cruising the streets of Boston in search of breaking news.


"If there’s a definitive Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, it’s “The Soiling of Old Glory” — Stanley Forman’s spot news winner for the Boston Herald American in 1976. In it, a youth turns an American flag into a weapon to use against a Black man at a school busing protest.

Then again, make that two definitive photos: The year before, Forman also won the Pulitzer for spot news with a harrowing image of a woman and her goddaughter falling out of the sky in his photo, “Fire Escape Collapse.”

Forman, 76, who began in newspapers in 1966 and switched to TV news videography two decades later, spent 55 years cruising the streets of Boston in search of breaking news, much of that time in a gas-guzzling Mercury Monarch. He retired on Dec. 31.

Or so he says.

“I have a great home life,” he said by phone from his home in Boston’s northern suburbs on the first weekend of the rest of his life. His primary plan is providing daycare for his four-month-old grandson, adding: “And I can do a limited amount of chasing on my own.” 

Read full article here   Jewish photographer who won Pulitzer retires – The Forward


Saturday, August 22, 2020

Photographer Stanley Forman discusses his iconic Anti-Busing photograph with subject Ted Landsmark

 


Ted Landsmark was an attorney going to a meeting at City Hall who came face-to-face with protesters. The clash was captured in this iconic photo by now WCVB photojournalist Stanley Forman.


Men behind iconic Boston photograph to be part of Antique Roadshow special

Hide Transcript Show Transcript -- THAT TOOK THAT PICTURE NEWSCENTER 5 PHOTOJOURNALIST STANLEY FORMAN MET UP AT THE , SPOT WHERE THAT PHOTO WAS TAKEN. NEWSCENTER 5'S MATT REED WAS THERE. >> IT'S FUNNY LOOKING BACK THE PICTURE, TAKES ME BACK TO THAT DAY MORE THAN MY MEMORY DOES.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Stanley Forman talks about bearing witness to the news, being the first on the scene, and the importance of photography

Credit Stanley Forman
The flag turns into a weapon in fight outside City Hall during the busing riots in 1976. Forman won a Pulitzer Prize for for this photograph

Via WGBH

Photojournalist Stanley Forman has been at the scene of most of Boston’s news events for the past 40 years, capturing iconic images that define the people and places in those stories. His work has earned him three Pulitzer Prizes, and he’s now working on a book entitled “Before Yellow Tape: A Pulitzer Prize Winner’s Fire Images.”

Forman sat down with Emily Rooney to talk about bearing witness to the news, being the first on the scene, and the importance of photography.



On becoming a photojournalist…

As a kid, I [followed] the sirens, the blue lights, the red lights. And finally, when I was around eighteen, my father said, “You go to all these things — why don’t you take a camera?” I thought I was going to be a firefighter. But he gave me a camera, and I got interested in photography, and I was very lucky.

On covering fires today…

You don’t have the access. I get to a fire, forget yellow tape — no matter what it is — you just don’t have the access that we had in the ‘60s, the ‘70s, the ‘80s. Everything has changed. I blame [changes in access] on O.J. Simpson, because everything changed after the mistakes they made at the scene.

On technology turning everyone into a photographer…

I’m self publishing — I know nothing about publishing … Anything you want to do in this digital age, you can become it. Do I like everyone taking pictures? I’m beat before I get there. No, I don’t like it … I’d like to think my framing is better than the guy with the iPhone, or the woman with the iPhone, but they have the image. Everything gets used.

On moving from the Boston Herald to Channel 5 in the ‘80s…

You cover news … with a still camera or a video camera. You use a Phillips screwdriver or a standard screwdriver. I’m still covering news, and that’s the most important thing to me.

Credit Stanley Forman
Fireman rescue Tammi Brownlee from a burning building in South Boston, 1977
 
 
 
 
Credit Stanley Forman
Evacuating horses from a burning stable at Suffolk Downs
 
 
 
 

Thursday, October 14, 2010

A Story Told: Miraculous Rescue, Remarkable Reunion


“I believe you took a photo for the Boston Herald American in January 1977 of a little girl and another of her mother that were published in the paper. The fire took place on Jan. 21, 1977, on 173 West Sixth St. in South Boston."

So began the message that photographer Stanley Forman received this July on his Facebook page. The message would lead to both a reunion and a hidden past revealed.

Forman, now a photographer for NewsCenter 5, had won three Pulitzer Prizes while working for the Boston Herald. His forte, then and now, is breaking news and fires.

"I am not sure if you would still have these pictures or more pictures that were not published. I am the little girl in the picture, Tammi,” the Facebook posting went on to say.
 
 
  ©StanleyFormanPhotos.com
 
Forman's compelling photos had captured a tragedy, and the girl in his pictures wanted to know more.


"It was one of the most intense fires I had ever been at. Knowing there were people trapped in the building and watching firefighters' attempts to get to them was very dramatic," said Forman.

Four people died in the fire, including Tammi's 6-year-old brother John.

Her mother, Ella May Kurtz, 30, was rescued, but died a few weeks later from her injuries.

But Forman's pictures also captured Tammi's miraculous rescue.
 
"When I got there the first shot I took was of firefighter George Girvan rushing a 3-year-old to safety after she was passed to him from firefighters who rescued her from the fire," he said.

©StanleyFormanPhotos.com


 
"I did not know at the time it was a girl," Forman said.

Forman had dropped off some of the pictures at the firehouse, including those of Alfred Chase, who the photos show being treated with oxygen after stumbling out of building.

After a few days of coverage in the newspaper, he thought the story had come to end.

Tammi Brownlee spent eight months in the hospital and then moved to Arizona for ten years before returning to South Boston. At first she lived with family and later with two foster families.

Thirty-three years after the fire, she went to the Boston Public Library to search for clues. She found Forman's pictures on the newspaper's front page and contacted him.

"This fire would have been another tragic fire that I have covered over my many years in this business," Forman said. "But then this e-mail came from Tammi and almost immediately I knew exactly which photos Tammi was talking about."

Earlier this summer, Forman joined a crew from for an interview with Tammi. After the interview, they took Tammi to South Boston for a surprise.

"The fire scene is now a vacant fenced in lot owned by the city. As Tammi and I walked up to the scene she was looking at this man coming towards us. She seemed confused as to who this man could be," Forman said.

"When I told her this was Alfred Chase, she knew exactly who he was from the newspaper clippings she had read and was taken aback," he said.

"He remembered locating her in the fire room and dragging her to safety with the help of other firefighters and passing her off to safety. It was a very emotional meeting for all," Forman said.

But Tammi's search did not end there. Fifteen years ago she learned she had two half siblings who had been given up for adoption before she was born.

"I had searched for years on adoption registry websites, hoping that they had put on there that they were looking for their birth mother or birth father," Tammi said. "When I started investigating the fire, everything fell into place."

Last month with help from the state, Brownlee found her sister Eleanor Doherty and just this week her brother David.

"It's a happy ending. It is what I have been waiting for, for a long time. It is family," Tammi said.

Along with her two children, Tammi brought her boyfriend of 10 years to the interview. Chad King is a Cape Cod firefighter.

I guess firefighters are my protectors,” Tammi said.

Copyright 2010 by TheBostonChannel.com


See more photographs from the fire here.