Saturday, December 21, 2024

Eugene Tapahe's Jingle Dress Project Featured: Embracing Native American Traditions This Winter Solstice

Via Cowboys and Indians Magazine 

December 21, 2024


The Gift, Eugene Tapahe, 2022, Yellowstone National Park, WY, Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project


"Earlier this fall, I had the wonderful opportunity to connect with and learn from Umatilla/Cayuse/Nez Perce jingle dress dancer Acosia Red Elk. In addition to sharing her beautiful performances, she is also a yoga instructor and a wellness advocate who has gained her wisdom by overcoming countless obstacles throughout her life, including losing her father at a young age and being burned in a fire as a child. The minute I met Acosia, I could feel that deep wisdom radiating from within her." --click for full article


The Gift, Eugene Tapahe, 2022, Yellowstone National Park, WY, Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project

Eugene Tapahe is featured in the current Gallery exhibition Frozen In Time, on view through January 19, 2025.

Thursday, December 19, 2024

New Documentary “Overturned,” with photography by Gallery photographer Ashley Gilbertson and edited by Julie Winokur of Talking Eyes Media

 Via Health Care Un-Covered

December 16, 2024

Watch the New Mini Documentary "Overturned" by Wendell Potter

"Health insurance is the biggest scam in the history of the United States of America."

Read on Substack

HEALTH CARE un-covered published previously, for eight grueling months, Jennifer Braunagel endured debilitating pain from rheumatoid arthritis while her insurance company, Aetna, denied coverage for Actemra, the only medication that offered hope. Her struggles were both emotional and physical – confronting endless roadblocks like prior authorization and step therapy, tactics big health insurers like Aetna, Cigna and UnitedHealth use to cut costs at patients’ expense.



Braunagel’s breakthrough came through a startup called Claimable, which uses AI to streamline and supercharge the appeals process. By leveraging data from similar cases and highlighting violations of insurance guidelines, Claimable crafted an appeal that succeeded where traditional methods failed. Within days Braunagel’s insurer was forced to cover her medicine. The results were life-changing — Braunagel experienced dramatic relief after her first infusion.

This mini documentary, “Overturned,” with photography by Ashley Gilbertson and edited by Julie Winokur of Talking Eyes Media, features Braunagel’s story, her arthritis clinic’s tireless advocacy, and interviews with other patients, who are navigating systemic health care barriers and denials by big health insurers.

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Gallery Photographers Mark Peterson and Ashley Gilbertson Featured In NY Times "The Photos That Defined 2024"

 Via The New York Times

December 18, 2024

The Year In Pictures 2024


color photograph of seated row of young men in red MAGA hats and suites waiting for election results in 2024

West Palm Beach, Fla., Nov. 5

Waiting for election results at a Trump watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center. They came faster than expected, with former President Donald J. Trump declared the winner early the next morning.

Mark Peterson for The New York Times

“It was before people knew Trump was going to win. It was shortly after they let a lot of the public in. They could have been waiting hours in line. They kept filing in and filling up the chairs until all of them were full. They were all dressed so alike. I took five frames and that was that.” — Mark Peterson


color photograph of young boys wit colorful-rimmed protective sunglasses watching solar eclipse


From the project “Watching the Total Eclipse Across North America,” April 8

As darkness raced across the sky during the total solar eclipse, people in Niagra Falls gathered outside to look up for a moment of reverence.

 Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times







Monday, December 16, 2024

The Battle of The Bulge: December 16, 1944 to January 25, 1945

 December 16, 2024


black and white photograph of soliders in deep snow movinf in a line during the Battle of Ardennes, winter, 1944


#onthisday, December 16, in 1944, The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, the last major German offensive campaign of WWII began. With the onset of winter, the German army launched a counteroffensive that was intended to cut through the Allied forces in a manner that would turn the tide of the war in Hitler's favor. 

The "Bulge" was the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States in World War II.

“I never wanted to be a fighter, but I always wanted to be a photographer. I decided to photograph portraits of the people in my unit, because they were the people I lived with. We slept together, we risked together. We did so much together. I never saw soldiers. I saw human beings. I saw red blood, human blood. The battlefield, in a way, helped me, because when the war is on, that’s all that it is, fighting all the time. You know that it can happen to you. What do you do about it? I took pictures.” –Tony Vaccaro


black and white photograph of 2 soldiers in deep snow near a snow-covered wagan during the Balltle of Ardennes, near Ottre, Belgiun in January, 1945


In the spring of 2025, Monroe Gallery of Photography will present a major exhibition commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Details to be announced soon.


black and white photograph os 3 American soldiers aiming their rifles in snow covered foxhole during the Battle of the Bulge in the Hurtgen Forest



Thursday, December 12, 2024

San Francisco names street for Associated Press photographer who captured the iconic Iwo Jima photo

 BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

December 12, 2024

black and white famous photograph of Marines raising the US Flag on Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jim in WWII

U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raise a U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan, Feb. 23, 1945. (AP Photo/Joe Rosenthal, File)

Credit/©: ASSOCIATED PRESS


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A photojournalist who captured one of the most enduring images of World War II — the U.S. Marines raising the flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima — will have a block in downtown San Francisco named for him Thursday.

Joe Rosenthal, who died in 2006 at age 94, was working for The Associated Press in 1945 when he took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo.

After the war, he went to work as a staff photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and for 35 years until his retirement in 1981, he captured moments of city life both extraordinary and routine.


Rosenthal photographed famous people for the paper, including a young Willie Mays getting his hat fitted as a San Francisco Giant in 1957, and regular people, including children making a joyous dash for freedom on the last day of school in 1965.

Tom Graves, chapter historian for the USMC Combat Correspondents Association, which pushed for the street naming, said it was a shame the talented and humble Rosenthal is known by most for just one photograph.

“From kindergarten to parades, to professional and amateur sports games, he was the hometown photographer,” he told the Chronicle. “I think that’s something that San Francisco should recognize and cherish.”

The 600 block of Sutter Street near downtown’s Union Square will become Joe Rosenthal Way. The Marines Memorial Club, which sits on the block, welcomes the street’s new name.

Rosenthal never considered himself a wartime hero, just a working photographer lucky enough to document the courage of soldiers.

When complimented on his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, Rosenthal said: “Sure, I took the photo. But the Marines took Iwo Jima.”



Tuesday, December 10, 2024

The line between activism and journalism breaks

 Via Neiman Labs

By Hafsa Maqsood

December 10, 2025


“When journalists around the world are being killed for practicing their freedom of press, journalists have no choice but to become activists.”

There is a growing frustration in the pit of the global journalism industry’s stomach. A frustration that comes from witnessing an entire year of devastating war in the Middle East, massive bloodshed, and ongoing conflicts across the globe where nothing seems to be working. A sickening frustration fed by the reeking hypocrisy of trying to “holding truth to power” in a post-truth world simultaneously bowing to power.

This frustration was born long ago in the stomachs of marginalized members of various diasporas, like myself, coming from histories of ancestral displacement and ravaging colonialism, and it is in part what has motivated them to join media and journalism industries only to be met with walls of supposed objectivity. An “impartiality” that leads to donning a hollow mask of white neutrality discordant with their lived realities.

That frustration will come to a breaking point in 2025 and translate into tearing down the line between activism and journalism that has already been breached, particularly since the 2020 rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

When democracies are in peril, when international laws meant to hold humanity accountable are being disregarded, when people charged with criminal offenses are leading governments, when journalists around the world are being killed for practicing their freedom of press, journalists have no choice but to become activists.

In 2025, journalists will no longer be told that coming in to work with a “Free Palestine” sticker on their laptops or water bottles is controversial and against guidelines while a “Stand With Ukraine” sticker is praised. Massive refugee and humanitarian displacements that occurred in 2024 will also impact news audiences. As journalists respond to audience demands, this shift will encourage a journalistic focus on human interest and global perspective stories that amplify refugee and diaspora narratives. Diaspora communities will play a crucial role in shaping these narratives through activism and storytelling that will bloom in the 2025 media and journalism industry.

When giving a lecture on media framing at the University of British Columbia in 2022, I held a roundtable attended by many members of Palestinian diaspora in Canada. Every one of them expressed turning away from legacy media in favor of citizen journalism and treating activists as sources for news. What if journalists with training and established platforms could tap into these audiences who are rejecting them in favor of unofficial news sources? What does this rejection mean for the decline of legacy media and journalistic ethics of “truth-telling?”

The answers to these questions, I predict, will come to fruition in 2025. We, as an industry, will have to reevaluate the meaning of “journalistic independence” if we want that sickening pit of frustration to heal. And the demands of a growing diaspora born out of conflict, war, and displacement will be one exceedingly difficult to ignore.

Hafsa Maqsood is a journalist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Calgary.

Monday, December 9, 2024

Monroe Gallery – A Photography Show for the Winter

 Via Joe McNally

December 9, 2024

black and white photograph of Mikhail Gorbachov standing in black coat and hat in a forest with snow



The new Monroe Gallery show is called Frozen In Time, which is the business we are in as photographers, no matter the temperature. But as painful as it can be to expose our fingers and cameras to the occasionally brutal ministrations of winter, those cold times of the calendar, and the resultant ice and snow make for truly memorable imagery. Hence the power of this show. A must see if you are in Santa Fe, and also important viewing online. Monroe’s archive of historically important imagery is so telling, and reverberates so deeply, that a perusal of their archives is basically a tour through our history.

Everything is harder to do in the cold, and so many of these images reflect the struggle of humankind to overcome the piercing blasts of deeply cold environments. In this show are the desperate attempts to fight off winter’s hold on the land, as well as the beautifully lyrical snow scenes of mountains, and the American West. And pictures of joy, as people enjoy the snow and ice, gliding and sliding and skating. But also seen are searing pictures from the front lines of war, as if war itself wasn’t enough utter misery.

I’m fortunate to be included in the show, with a hard won picture of the former president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. He was a pivotal figure in Russian history, presiding over the dissolution of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe, and guiding Russia, despite threats and opposition to a place of more openness to the West, and within its own politics. At once hailed and reviled, he won the Nobel Peace Prize, and became one of the most significant figures in history. At the same time, the reforms he tried to initiate earned him the enmity and disapproval of many Russians, particularly those in positions of power.

Hence the head shot in his office was insufficient in terms of storytelling. I wanted to bring him to the woods, where I could photograph him alone, in a stark environment indicating his isolation. It took some doing. I had to wrangle and push in the best persistent, annoying photographer mode I could. He wasn’t happy about it, but he came to the woods about three days after the office shoot, and stepped into the snow with his fancy shoes. He posed for about five minutes. And then, he shook my hand and spoke the only English word he said to me while we were together: “Goodbye.”

And he meant it.

Thursday, December 5, 2024

Not in Kansas anymore: Alabama press violations echo earlier attack

 Via Freedom Of The Press Foundation

December 5, 2024



“Where are all the good people who are supposed to stop this from happening?”


Marion County Record co-owner Joan Meyer asked that question repeatedly before her death — a day after local police illegally and unconstitutionally raided her community newspaper and home in response to the Record’s reporting about a local restaurant owner’s drunk driving convictions.

Alabama reporter Don Fletcher and newspaper publisher Sherry Digmon might have asked themselves that same question.

Last year, the two were arrested on sham charges for allegedly revealing grand jury secrets. Digmon, who also served on the local school board, was charged with violating an Alabama ethics law as well. It’s yet another unfortunate effort to make journalism a crime and silence reporters.

The bogus criminal investigation came after Atmore News, the local newspaper co-owned by Digmon, published Fletcher’s article about a school board meeting and a subpoena seeking school board financial records from the previous year. The subpoena was issued by Escambia County District Attorney Stephen Billy.

Four months after the arrests, Billy admitted to personal and professional conflicts of interest in the cases, and removed himself as prosecutor. The state attorney general’s office dropped the charges soon after.

Now, Digmon and Fletcher, joined by a school board member and a district employee also caught up in the investigation, have filed a federal lawsuit against Billy, Sheriff Heath Jackson, and “allies” for conspiring to violate their First and Fourth amendment rights.

On the surface, the attack on Atmore News — like that on the Marion County Record — may appear limited to a few law enforcement officials abusing their power. But in both cases, a little digging reveals politically motivated multiparty schemes.

The similarities between officials’ arrest of Fletcher and Digmon and the raid on the Record are startling and informative. After the Marion raid, the response and backlash seemed to make a repeat unlikely soon. But just months later, the Atmore News found itself at the center of a similar attack on press freedom.

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

The story behind the 'iconic' Buna shot from WWII

 Via Australian Photography

By Stephen Dando-Collins | 4 December 2024

black and white photograph of a wounded Australian soldier, Private George ‘Dick’ Whittington.  Barefoot, walking with the aid of a long stick, his eyes were covered by a rough bandage. Guiding Whittington was volunteer Papuan carrier Raphael Oimbari

George Silk’s The Blind Soldier. Later, Silk would say there was something distinctive about the two subjects. The Papuan carrier in particular grabbed his attention: “He was helping him so tenderly,” he said. Image: Australian War Memorial


Early on Christmas Day, 1942, 26-year-old George Silk rose from his cot at battalion HQ at Soputa in northeast Papua and began walking to the Buna battlefront 10km away.

Around his neck hung his two cameras – a Rolleiflex Standard for close-ups, and a 35mm Zeiss Ikon Contax fitted with a telephoto lens for distance shots.

Silk was a New Zealand camera shop assistant who’d turned up in the Canberra office of Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies in January 1940.

He talked Menzies into hiring him as Australia’s second government combat photographer, and after working in North Africa, Silk was reassigned by the Australian Department of Information (DOI) to the New Guinea campaign.

For close to three years Silk had striven to take the ‘great’ war picture, something to emulate or surpass Robert Capa’s famous 1937 shot from the Spanish Civil War, The Falling Soldier.

Now, with the Australians and Americans starting to gain the upper hand in the fight against the Imperial Japanese Army in Papua, Silk was anxious to get his best shot before the Battle of Buna-Gona ended.

So, on December 24 he dragged himself from his hospital bed outside Port Moresby, where he’d been laid low by malaria, and hitched a ride back to the front.

On the track to Old Strip, Silk, rounding a bend in the tall kunai grass, saw two men approaching side-by-side. One was a wounded Australian soldier, Private George ‘Dick’ Whittington.

Barefoot, walking with the aid of a long stick, his eyes were covered by a rough bandage. Guiding Whittington was volunteer Papuan carrier Raphael Oimbari, a farmer in his twenties.

It almost seemed as if Silk would be intruding if he photographed the pair. “I wanted to take the picture, but I didn’t at first,” he later recalled.

But his documentarian’s instincts kicked in. Using his Rolleiflex from the waist with the pair less than two metres away, Silk snapped a single shot without even looking down into the viewfinder.

Seemingly unaware of him, the wounded soldier and carrier passed Silk by. Hurrying after them, he obtained the soldier’s details before the pair continued on.

Later that day, Silk joined Whittington’s 2/10th Battalion. Clicking away in the thick of the fighting that afternoon, he collapsed face-down on the battlefield. Malaria had caught up with him. 

Towards sunset, an Aussie soldier found the photographer lying with the dead all around him. Evacuated to Moresby, Silk ended up in a malaria ward.

You can’t keep a good photographer down. Silk was soon back at the front. At Giropa Point on December 31 and January 1, he took what he considered his two best pictures of the war, close-ups beside Bren-gunners and Vickers-gunners with bullets whistling all around. Again, Silk collapsed with malaria, and again he ended up in hospital.

Meanwhile, another George, American Life photographer George Strock, snapped three dead American soldiers on Buna Beach.

In hospital, George Silk learned the DOI had banned his two Giropa Point photos – one showed a dead Digger, while one of the Bren-gunners had dropped down dead beside him seconds after he took his picture.

At the same time, Silk’s photo of Whittington and the ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel’ was also banned for being ‘too graphic’.

Silk was incensed. So, he wined and dined a young female clerk working in the DOI’s Port Moresby office and brought her into a conspiracy.

She had prints of his three banned pictures made at the DOI’s Sydney photographic laboratory and sent to her.

She gave them to Silk, who passed them to a war correspondent friend, who had them approved by the American censor at GHQ in Brisbane. Silk then gave his prints to George Strock, who smuggled them to Life.

Strock knew the Pentagon banned publication of photos of American dead, but was appalled by apathy towards the war at home. He was determined to jolt his fellow Americans into getting behind their troops.

On March 8, 1943, Life published Silk’s The Blind Soldier, full page.

Readers hailed it the best picture of the war. A month later Silk was fired by the DOI. Parliamentary backbenchers called for him to be charged with treason. His friend Damien Parer resigned in protest at his treatment.

Meanwhile, Life management struggled for seven months to gain War Department approval to publish Strock’s Three Dead Americans.

Going all the way to the White House, they discovered that, like George Strock, President Roosevelt was determined to cement Americans behind the war effort by being honest with them. With his approval, Three Dead Americans appeared in Life on September 20, 1943, shocking America.

In 2014, Time magazine would describe it as ‘the photograph that won the war’. Two iconic images, and one amazing story. ❂


The Buna shots: The Amazing Story Behind Two Photographs that Changed the Course of World War Two, by Stephen Dando-Collins, is published by Australian Scholarly Publishing. It’s the never before told story of two arresting photographs, two courageous photographers, and the quest for truth in war. You can order a copy here: https://bit.ly/3ZQ5DpV


Friday, November 29, 2024

Images of Winter Are Frozen in Time

 Via Pasatiempo

November 29, 2024

black and white photograph of a design formed by snow in a wrought iron banister in New York in 1947

In the 2023 photograph Ancestral Strength by Eugene Tapahe, four Indigenous women — Cayuse, Umatilla, Newe Sogobia, and Tséstho’e — stand side by side wearing brightly colored traditional garb, staring toward the sky behind the photographer. The stark winter beauty of the background in Wyoming’s Teton National Park further highlights the women’s projected power.

In the 1949 photograph Southern Pacific Steam Engine by John Dominis, a steam engine plows through a snowy landscape at Donner Pass, California.

Both images showcase forms of strength, but that’s not the tie that binds them. Both are part of Frozen in Time, an exhibition that Monroe Gallery of Photography describes as an “imaginative survey of compelling images.” It covers a range of human experiences, from the joy of exploration in George Silk’s 1946 shot Tourists Climb Fox Glacier in Tasman National Park, taken in New Zealand, to the ugly brutality of war in Tony Vaccaro’s White Death, Pvt. Henry Irving Tannebaum Ottre, taken in Belgium in 1945. 

It opens with a reception from 4-6 p.m. Friday, November 29. — Brian Sandford


details

Through January 19

Monroe Gallery of Photography

112 Don Gaspar Avenue

505-992-0800, monroegallery.com

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

New Exhibition "Frozen In Time" Opening and Plaza Holiday Lighting Will be Held Nov. 29

 The new exhibition "Frozen In Time", an imaginative survey of compelling images that reveal moments in history and the unseen and unexpected layers of our world in winter, opens with a public reception on Friday, November 29, from 4-6 pm. 






The City of Santa Fe’s annual Holiday Plaza Lighting ceremony will be held from 4:15-8 p.m. Nov. 29 on The Plaza.

Santa and Mrs. Claus will arrive by vintage fire truck at 5:45 p.m. City officials will switch on the lights at 6:30 p.m., and Santa Fe’s holiday season will officially begin.

Live Music will begin at 4:15 p.m.
Hot Cocoa & Cookies
Food Trucks
Countdown to Lighting


City of Santa Fe Flyer with information about annual Holiday Plaza Lighting ceremony will be held from 4:15-8 p.m. Nov. 29 on The Plaza.



Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Gallery Photographer Nina Berman Named 2025 World Press Photo Contest North and Central America Jury Chair

 Via World Press Photo

November 25, 2024

In each of the six regions of our contest model, a selection of entries per category will first be made by a regional jury, chaired by the regional jury chair.

The juries are made up of professionals from and/or working in the region they are judging, who are well-equipped to place the stories into a cultural, political and social context.

Once the regional juries have made their selection of entries, the global jury, composed of the six regional jury chairs and one additional member, the global jury chair, decides on the 2025 World Press Photo Contest winners. From those, they will then choose the World Press Photo of the Year and the two runners-up. 

The global jury is assisted by a secretary. The secretary is responsible for all procedural matters and ensures the rules and procedures are fairly and properly applied. The secretary does not contribute to debate on the merits of any entry, and has no vote in the balloting.


Nina Berman is an American documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

World Press Photo Involvement:
2025 World Press Photo Contest jury member
2011 World Press Photo Contest jury member
2005 World Press Photo Contest winner
2007 World Press Photo Contest winner

Nina Berman on Social Media:
Instagram: @nina_berman

Nina Berman fine art prints at Monroe Gallery of Photography

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Depths of winter: 'Frozen in Time' brings images of joy, despair to Monroe Gallery

 Via The Albuquerque Journal

By Kathaleen Roberts

November 24, 2024

sreenshot of Albuquerque Journal article on Monroe Gallery exhibition "Frozen In Time"


Winter brings both beauty and brutality.

Open at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography, “Frozen in Time” brings images of both joy and despair by some of the most renowned American photojournalists. The photographs cover the 2016 protests during the Standing Rock pipeline construction, a skating waiter at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in the early 1900s, and images of the grim winter conditions during World War II.

Several of the photojournalists worked for Life magazine.

"It always makes for a beautiful, serene, contemplative experience,” said Michelle Monroe, gallery co-owner, of the frosty season. “We know it’s cold, we know it’s quiet, we know there is a veil of light.”


black and white photograph of a waiter on ice skate and wearing a tuxedul skating with serving tray and drinks in St. Moritz, 1934

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection: Ice Skating Waiter, St. Moritz, 1932


Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “Ice Skating Waiter” encapsulates the grace of skating while balancing a tray of glasses and liquor.

“He had a very rudimentary camera with glass plates,” Monroe said. “He said the whole thing was a technical challenge.”

The photographer focused on the chair until the waiter swanned by.


black and white photograph of 3 US soldiers in snow covered forest with guns aimed during the Battke of Hurtgen Forest, 1944
Tony Vaccaro: Battle of Hurtgen Forest, Germany, 1944


Tony Vaccaro’s photograph of soldiers partially buried in snow during the 88-day Battle of Hürtgen Forest captures the longest fight on German ground of World War II. An estimated 24,000 were killed, wounded or captured.

“There was no one more uncomfortable than the other,” Monroe said. “You couldn’t even find any comfort being together. (Vaccaro) said there was a lot of dark humor.”

In 2023, Navajo photographer Eugene Tapahe took “Ancestral Strength” in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park.


color photograph of 4 Native women with colorful blankets wearing Jingle Dresses" in front of the Teton mountains, Wyomig
Eugene Tapahe
Ancestral Strength, Teton National Park, WY, Cayuse, Umatilla, Newe Sogobia and Tséstho’e, 2023

Tapahe was studying at Utah’s Brigham Young University when the pandemic hit. He decided to take four Native jingle dancers (two of whom were his daughters) across the country.

“The jingle dress has always been used for healing,” Monroe said. “Since the schools were closed, perhaps he could heal the country. They went all over performing. It had a tremendous effect on people.”

Those stops included Mount Rushmore, Yosemite and New York’s Central Park.

Ryan Vizzions photographed the protests over the Standing Rock pipeline in 2017, including a portrait of a medicine man.


Native American wrapped in colorful blanket with tipis behind him durng a snwo storm at the Standing Rock protestes in North Dakota in 2016
Ryan Vizzions: Standing Rock, Winter, 2016

“He was a spiritual counselor and guide for everything there to keep people in focus,” Monroe said.

“(For) a lot of the older photographers, in order to be put on the front page, it was to get out there and get a shot of this latest snowstorm,” Monroe said. “She was part of the Photo League (cooperative.) They were shut down by the Red Scare movement for being subversive.”

black and white photo of design made from snow in a wrought iron railing in New York, 194556
Ida Wyman: Wrought Iron Design in Snow, New York City, 1945

The photographs also include images of the 1939 Russo-Finnish War, harsh winter conditions in the northern Soviet Union taken during its collapse in the 1990s and several ice skating scenes, including Truman Capote at New York’s famed Rockefeller Plaza in 1959, as well as tranquil snow scenes of the American West.

long line of Japanese soldiers in training snaking through deep snow in Hokkaido, Japan, 1951
Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection: The newly created 'Japanese Police Force' moves out of camp for winter training, Hokkaido, Japan, 1951

Monroe Gallery specializes in photojournalism. It was the recipient of the 2010 Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Excellence in Photojournalism.


'FROZEN IN TIME'

WHEN: Opening Reception on Friday, Nov. 29, 4-6 pm; exhibition continues through Jan. 19, 2025

WHERE: Monroe Gallery, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe

MORE INFO: monroegallery.com, 505-992-0800

Friday, November 22, 2024

Publisher of raided Kansas newspaper delivers advice to journalists: ‘Make democracy great again’

 Via Kansas Reflector

November 18, 2024



TOPEKA — The editor of the Kansas newspaper raided by police last year has a message for journalists struggling with their sense of purpose.

Go on the offensive.

Eric Meyer, editor and publisher of the Marion County Record, delivered remarks Friday as he was inducted alongside his mother, Joan, into the Kansas Press Association Newspaper Hall of Fame.

“I think this is a time when we have to establish for the people of this country the fact that we are important, that we have things that we can tell them that they will want to know, that they will want to change their positions about,” Meyer said.

He added, in a nod to the results of the presidential election: “Let’s not make America great again. Let’s make democracy great again.”

Police raided the Marion County Record newsroom and the home where Meyer lived with his mother in August 2023 under the false pretense that journalists had committed a crime by looking up a public record. Joan Meyer, the 98-year-old co-owner whose profane clash with police officers was captured on camera, died a day after the raid from stress-induced cardiac arrest. The raid spawned five civil lawsuits and a criminal charge against the police chief who led the attack on a free press.

Meyer said he is “an odd duck” because he retired to run a newspaper, rather than retire from it. He returned to Kansas during the COVID-19 pandemic to take over the publication his parents had operated for decades. After teaching journalism for 20 years at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Meyer wanted to practice what he had been preaching — that journalism is still vital.

“We’re not talking about the future of journalists. We’re talking about the future of democracy,” Meyer said. “Because without journalism, there is no democracy. We can’t have an informed public making informed decisions that will lead our country if they don’t have information, solid information that’s reliable. Getting their attention, though, is a very serious problem.”


Before the raid on his newspaper, Meyer said, circulation was already up, “because we were trying to do the best news stories we could.” After the raid, thousands of people from across the country purchased subscriptions in a show of support. Many of them, he said, are actually reading the stories. Some of the out-of-state readers have become so invested in the news out of Marion that they are even writing letters to the editor.

His advice to other journalists: “Forget all the gimmicks.”

“Don’t worry about what you put on social media,” Meyer said. “Don’t worry about the video you’re shooting. Don’t worry about the blogs you’re writing. Don’t worry about the marketing techniques. Do good journalism, period. Good journalism. That means finding stories that affect people and giving them an opportunity to do something about it.”

Joan Meyer edited the newspaper for 50 years and continued writing until she died. Her last column ran in the same issue as her obituary.

Her death intensified national interest in a story about the abuse of power in trying to silence a free press.

“Although I’m sure she didn’t want to go out the way she did, worrying about the Hitler tactics and so on, it is kind of rare, at age 98, that your death means something to someone, that you go out and you’re you’re sort of a martyr to your cause,” her son said.






Other hall of fame inductees were Ann Brill, dean of the University of Kansas journalism school; Sally Buzbee, a former executive editor of the Washington Post and Associated Press; small-town publishers Cynthia Desilet Haynes and Ben Marshall; retired Wichita Eagle and Kansas City Star reporter Roy Wenzl; and photojournalists Barbara Kinney, David Peterson, George Olson, Joel Sartore and W. Eugene Smith.

Thursday, November 21, 2024

WITNESS: Nate Gowdy’s Lens on January 6, 2021

 WITNESS: Nate Gowdy’s Lens on January 6th, 2021

January 9 - February 15, 2025

 

On January 20, 2017, Nate Gowdy stood at the U.S. Capitol, camera in hand, as Donald J. Trump—with right hand raised and left atop the Lincoln Bible—took the oath of office, vowing to end “American carnage.” It was an ominous prelude to a presidency that would redefine American political expression.

 Four years later, on January 6, 2021, Gowdy returned to Washington, DC, prepared to document Trump’s “Save America” rally at the Ellipse. Instead, he witnessed surreal scenes unfold: militants marching, kneeling in prayer, posing for group photos, breaking for hotdogs, rampaging against the Capitol’s sworn protectors, and leading thousands to defile the Inauguration Day stage.

 This fine art exhibition, WITNESS: Nate Gowdy’s Lens on January 6th, 2021, examines that day as a theater of chaos and conviction. Gowdy's stark, unflinching images depict the U.S. Capitol, one of democracy’s most sacred symbols, as it becomes a haunting set piece in a dystopian tableau of domestic terror—an inside job.

 Twice assaulted for being deemed "fake news," Gowdy persisted in exposing the truth. Shot on assignment for Rolling Stone, his images transcend traditional photojournalism, revealing the kinetic energy and raw emotions of insurrection: vulnerability, rage, fear, and euphoria. These are not just photographs of an event but intimate portraits of the humanity—and inhumanity—that defined it.

 Through this collection, Gowdy challenges viewers to confront the complexities of identity, power, and the fragility of democratic ideals. WITNESS invites us to reflect on the contradictions of that day, presenting the Capitol not only as a battleground but as a mirror to the nation itself. What do these images reveal about us—and what do they demand we reckon with?

 On January 20, 2017, Nate Gowdy stood at the U.S. Capitol, camera in hand, as Donald J. Trump—with right hand raised and left atop the Lincoln Bible—took the oath of office, vowing to end “American carnage.” It was an ominous prelude to a presidency that would redefine American political expression.

 Four years later, on January 6, 2021, Gowdy returned to Washington, DC, prepared to document Trump’s “Save America” rally at the Ellipse. Instead, he witnessed surreal scenes unfold: militants marching, kneeling in prayer, posing for group photos, breaking for hotdogs, rampaging against the Capitol’s sworn protectors, and leading thousands to defile the Inauguration Day stage.

 This fine art exhibition, WITNESS: Nate Gowdy’s Lens on January 6th, 2021, examines that day as a theater of chaos and conviction. Gowdy's stark, unflinching images depict the U.S. Capitol, one of democracy’s most sacred symbols, as it becomes a haunting set piece in a dystopian tableau of domestic terror—an inside job.

 Twice assaulted for being deemed "fake news," Gowdy persisted in exposing the truth. Shot on assignment for Rolling Stone, his images transcend traditional photojournalism, revealing the kinetic energy and raw emotions of insurrection: vulnerability, rage, fear, and euphoria. These are not just photographs of an event but intimate portraits of the humanity—and inhumanity—that defined it.

 Through this collection, Gowdy challenges viewers to confront the complexities of identity, power, and the fragility of democratic ideals. WITNESS invites us to reflect on the contradictions of that day, presenting the Capitol not only as a battleground but as a mirror to the nation itself. What do these images reveal about us—and what do they demand we reckon with?

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s Native Art Market returns to the museum in Washington, D.C.

 Via Smithsonian

November 20, 2024


Native Art Market Brings Indigenous Artisans to Washington for Curated Shopping Experience

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s Native Art Market returns to the museum in Washington, D.C., Dec. 7 and 8. This annual event invites lovers of art and craftsmanship to meet Indigenous artists and learn about traditional Native arts and contemporary Native creativity. Forty artists will offer authentic, hand-crafted works of art, including jewelry, fashion, photography and pottery. Serious collectors and casual shoppers will find one-of-a-kind pieces at a wide range of prices. During the market, guests will enjoy music by DJ JonRay.

Museum members will have early access to the market during a preview party Dec. 6, from 6 to 8 p.m.

The list of artists scheduled to attend includes Gallery photographer Eugene Tapahe, whose work is featured in the current exhibition "Frozen In Time".



Monday, November 18, 2024

Joe McNally "Faces of Ground Zero" Giant Polaroid Exhibit And Talk At 9/11 Museum

 

Via 9/11 Memorial and Museum

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Faces of Ground Zero: A Conversation with Joe McNally

6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET

Cover of the book "Faces Of Ground Zero" with a  color photograph of a NY Fireman holding his helmet after working at the site of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center


Award-winning photographer Joe McNally’s "Faces of Ground Zero: Portraits of the Heroes of September 11, 2001" is comprised of 246 large-scale polaroids featuring individuals who responded to 9/11 and contributed to the rescue and recovery operations at Ground Zero. A cross-section of these responder portraits will be on view in the Museum beginning this November. In conversation with Executive Vice President of Collections & Chief Curator Dr. Jan Ramirez, McNally will discuss his undertaking of this project in the emotional weeks following the attacks, how this medium served to uniquely capture this community, and his own experience interacting with those at the heart of this tragedy. 

 This program is presented as a complement to the Museum’s exhibition Faces of Ground Zero. The exhibition will be on view starting late November 2024.


More information and registration here.



color photograph of people viewing exhibit of large Polaroid prints (over 8 feet tall) of rescue workers at Ground Zero after the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001
Credit Joe McNally


Saturday, November 16, 2024

Reflections On An Exhibition

 

Grey Villet
Coma and Compassion, Nurse Judy Strickland, New York, 1977



November 17, 2024


Today is the final day for the exhibition "The Best Of Us". 

At the conclusion of every exhibit, we find ourselves discussing our impressions, thoughts, and the feedback we received from gallery visitors and collectors. This time, our reflections are deeply meaningful. 

"The Best Of Us" was an exhibition depicting the ideals and diversity of the human experience; through nearly 50 photographs which explored the characterization of extraordinary and everyday people who renew our faith that all things are possible and exemplify our ideals. People who exemplified the best traits of humanity:  kindness, empathy, compassion, consideration, patience, generosity, resilience, and the willingness to make a difference.

Opening on October 4, as America headed into the final stage of a Presidential election, the images in the exhibit emphasized the necessity of understanding and appreciating photojournalism.

There have been many exhibits that we wish could have run longer, and this another; it will be difficult to see it come to an end. Since the opening on October 4, the exhibit has been seen by many hundreds of viewers: young, old, tours, school groups, veterans, politicians, museum curators, collectors, the "famous", and even a few homeless. We have seen parents quietly explaining the situation behind a photograph to their children, we have seen people softly weeping, and the quiet of the gallery has occasionally been startled by someone gasping "Oh my God!" 

This exhibition has affirmed our steadfast belief in the power of a photograph. The introductory wall text included this quote from Maya Angelou: "Be sure you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity”. 

We are so grateful for all of the participating photographers, so many of whom we have been privileged to have known know personally. For those who are no longer living with us, we thank their families for preserving their archives. For those still working, we honor your commitment and service to humanity.

 Thank you to all who visited the exhibit and thank you for your kind words and shared emotions. It has been deeply moving to see "The Best Of Us" personified in visitors to the exhibit.


“I cannot tell you where our history is leading us, or through what suffering, or into what era of war or peace. But wherever it is, I know people of good heart will be passing there.” -Carl Mydans, Life photojournalist


View "The Best of Us" and other past exhibits archived here.




Friday, November 8, 2024

Anna Boyiazis Photographs Featured in "Growing Up in Climate Chaos"

 

Via The New York Times

November 7, 2024


Growing Up in Climate Chaos

When you’re a teenager, everything can feel like a crisis. But for these teenagers living in areas around the world affected by climate change, the sense of growing crisis is real — not in some hazy future but today, disrupting their adolescence in ways both large and small…

Obama Mchembe pays attention to rain. He has to. When the roads flood, he stays home from school for days at a time. Floods, heat and drought make it harder to grow crops, so his family struggles to buy staple foods, including maize flour, rice and sugar. ‘‘In the past, it was normal for us to eat foods like rice,’’ Mchembe says. ‘‘But now, for a month, we can eat rice once or twice.

Mchembe worries about what climate change means for the future, both for himself and for his country. He and his classmates have started planting cassia trees in a field beside their school — a simple act that ‘‘makes all of us feel courage.’’

full article here

color photograph showing close up of 5 schoolmates faces in a circle, from above, in Tanzania
Mchembe and his schoolmates in the shade of cassia trees
Photograph by Anna Boyiazis


Thursday, November 7, 2024

Eugene Tapahe: Between the Worlds

Via Utah Policy

November 6, 2024 


Celebrated Native American art exhibit comes to UVU’s Museum of Art at Lakemount


In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, the Utah Valley University Museum of Art at Lakemount is pleased to present an art exhibition by Diné (Navajo) artist Eugene Tapahe. “Eugene Tapahe: Between the Worlds” opens with a reception on Tuesday, November 12, from 5-7:30 pm. The exhibition will remain on view through February 15, 2025.

“Eugene Tapahe: Between the Worlds” explores multiple meanings, connecting the contemporary world with tradition while highlighting the relationship between people and the land. Curated by Katherine Jackson, professor of art history at UVU, the exhibition includes a combination of Tapahe’s installations, photography, and performance, engaging people and places while mapping monuments as sacred sites throughout the modern world.

“I draw inspiration from my Diné (Navajo) traditions and modern experiences. My work reflects the fragility and resilience of Native American culture. I strive to unite these two worlds in my concepts while transcending worldly uncertainties. Through various visual mediums, I intend to celebrate and honor the identity and culture of Native Americans. Ultimately, the persona of my work offers unity, hope, and healing,” said Tapahe.

Tapahe is Diné (Navajo) and originally from Window Rock, Arizona. He received his MFA in studio art from Brigham Young University. Tapahe has exhibited his work in prestigious shows at the Santa Fe Indian Market, the Heard Museum Indian Fair & Market, the Cherokee Art Market, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. He has received awards for his photography from the Cherokee Art Market (2018) and the Museum of Northern Arizona (2019), and he was honored with two International Awards of Excellence from “Communication Arts” magazine.

Tapahe’s work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Arizona State Museum, the Minnesota History Center, the College of Wooster Art Museum, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art at Utah State University, and more.

His art is represented by the Modern West gallery in Salt Lake City, Utah; Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol, England; and Four Winds Gallery in Sydney, Australia. Tapahe resides in Provo, Utah, with his wife, Sharon, and their two daughters, Erin and Dion.

“Eugene Tapahe: Between the Worlds” is one of several concurrent exhibitions at the UVU Museum of Art at Lakemount. The annual Faculty Art Exhibition highlighting the work of 41 artists teaching at UVU is on view in the upstairs galleries through November 20, in addition to several exhibits of artwork from the museum’s permanent collection.

At Utah Valley University, we believe everyone deserves the transforming benefits of high-quality education — and it needs to be affordable, accessible, and flexible. With opportunities to earn everything from certificates to master’s degrees, our students succeed by gaining real-world experience and developing career-ready skills. We continue to invite people to come as they are — and leave ready and prepared to make a difference in the world.

For more information, visit UVU’s Newsroom website for fact sheets, maps, leadership bios, history, photos, b-roll, filming policies, and a list of interview-ready faculty experts at https://www.uvu.edu/newsroom/# or scan this QR code.

Monday, October 28, 2024

Gabriela Campos Receives Awards At New Mexico Press Association’s 2024 Better Newspapers contest

screenshot of Santa Fe New Mexican banner and text headline for article '"New Mexican" wins top award in state newspaper competition'




October 27, 2024


Photographer Gabriela Campos took first place in the feature photo category for “Storm over Ghost Ranch"

Online photo gallery: 2nd, Gabriela Campos, “New Mexico State Police Officer Justin Hare honored at Albuquerque funeral.”

 

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Journalists must be allowed to do their jobs safely in Lancaster County and across the US [editorial]

 Via Lancaster Online

October 27, 2024


3 frames from video footage shows a Lancaster city police officer pushing a photojournalist to the ground during protests Sunday, Oct. 20, in Penn Square, near the Lancaster County Convention Center, where Donald Trump was speaking.
Lancaster Safety Coalition footage shows a Lancaster city police officer pushing a photojournalist to the ground during protests Sunday, Oct. 20, in Penn Square, near the Lancaster County Convention Center, where Donald Trump was speaking.

Lancaster Safety Coalition



THE ISSUE

“A Lancaster city police officer pushed a photojournalist to the ground (last) Sunday afternoon, causing her to hit her head on the street during a protest of former President Donald Trump’s town hall event at Lancaster County Convention Center,” LNP | LancasterOnline reported. Susan Stava, a New York City-based freelance photographer, was working to capture the scene in Lancaster city’s Penn Square, where local Democrats were protesting Trump’s visit. Video shows a Lancaster city police officer firmly pushing Stava, causing her to fall backward onto the road. Stava said she landed on her camera bag, and a lens was broken.

It took the Lancaster City Bureau of Police all of three days to “investigate” the incident in which a freelance photojournalist was pushed to the ground by a city police officer. Its conclusion: The officer “followed the law including the Bureau’s training, policies, and procedures.”


"Journalists see journalism not merely as a job, but as a calling that’s critical to the health of a democracy. Elected officials should not actively undermine their safety — or stay silent about an incident in which a journalist faced harm."

Saturday, October 26, 2024

Eugene Tapahe included in Tiny Gallery Takeover exhibit Land Back

 

screen shot of poster for Tiny Gallery exhibit Land Back with 7 images by 7 contemporary Native artists and text Friday, November 1 5-8 pm

Via Tiny Gallery


November 1st, at 8 Stanford Place: opening reception for Land Back: A Tiny Gallery Takeover in Lenapehoking, curated by Jennifer Ley.

In celebration of Native American Heritage Month and Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge/Native Art at the Montclair Art Museum, Tiny Gallery presents Land Back featuring collections from seven contemporary Native artists, including Eugene Tapahe, installed in six Tiny Galleries across Montclair, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield, New Jersey—all part of Lenapehoking, the ancestral homelands of the Lenape people. 

Art allows us to examine the past, interpret the present, and envision the future, and Ley’s curation of Land Back brings the stories of Indigenous Americans, too often dismissed or overlooked, forward.

One of Tiny Gallery’s missions is to bring artistic voices that may not normally be heard into communities and present them in a new context and we feel incredibly privileged to be able to collaborate with renowned Native artists.

Tiny Gallery

8 Stanford Place

Montclair, NJ 07042

Information here

Friday, October 25, 2024

"As A.I. Becomes Harder to Detect, Photography Is Having a Renaissance"

 Via The New York Times

October 25, 2024


"After at least a decade of focusing almost exclusively on painting, many of the largest and most powerful art dealers are dedicating significant attention and real estate to photography.

It is part of a broader renaissance for the medium that is arriving, perhaps counterintuitively, just as images produced by artificial intelligence become virtually indistinguishable from real documentation."

Click for full article

Thursday, October 24, 2024

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent, in dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

 Via Columbia Journalism Review

October 23, 2024


Los Angeles Times editorials editor resigns after owner blocks presidential endorsement


Mariel Garza, the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned on Wednesday after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told me in a phone conversation. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

On October 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper for $500 million in 2018, informed the paper’s editorial board that the Times would not be making an endorsement for president. The message was conveyed to Garza by Terry Tang, the paper’s editor.

The board had intended to endorse Harris, Garza told me, and she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial. She had hoped to get feedback on the outline and was taken aback upon being told that the newspaper would not take a position.

“I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters,” Garza told me. “We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.

“But two things concern me: This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be reelected.”

--Click for full article

Friday, October 18, 2024

Review: "hope and fighting for improvement are central features of The Best of Us "

 Via Pastiempo

The Santa Fe New Mexican

October 18, 2024

black and white photograph of 3 exhausted nurses with their names inscribed on face masks at a nursing station in the Covid ward of Santa Fe's Christus St. Vincent hospital, December, 2020Fe  ho
Gabriela E. Campos
A nursing station in the Frost 19 unit, Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, Santa Fe, NM, December, 2020

Here's your weekly roundup of some of the must-see, must-do, must-know things that need to be on your radar this week.

PICTURE THIS

‘Best’ Practices

In one image, three masked, exhausted-looking medical professionals slump at a desk, one’s head leaning on another’s shoulder. Two others show American societal matriarchs Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt — the former serious, the latter smiling. Yet another shows a Black man with “Vote” painted on his face during a march in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.

All are part of The Best of Us, running through mid-November at Monroe Gallery of Photography. The gallery describes the featured images as “depicting the ideals and diversity of the human experience which explore the characterization of extraordinary and everyday people who renew our faith that all things are possible and exemplify our ideals.”

In other words, hope and fighting for improvement are central features of The Best of Us — distinguishing it from some previous Monroe Gallery exhibitions. Photojournalism is the gallery’s bread and butter, and the fruits of that craft can be compelling but challenging.

The Best of Us hangs on the gallery’s walls, while the virtual project The Campaign can be viewed at monroegallery.com/VirtualProjects. It coincides with the election season, ending November 24. Images include a rapturously smiling woman wearing an “Obama, You’re Fired” shirt meeting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump; former President Barack Obama talking and gesturing as rain falls; and former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney gazing at their watches simultaneously, a painting of Abraham Lincoln behind them. — B.S.


details

9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, through November 17

Monroe Gallery of Photography

112 Don Gaspar Avenue

505-992-0800; monroegallery.com

Monday, October 14, 2024

Ed Kashi EXPOSES How Photography Shapes Our View of the World

 Via Planet of One

October 12, 2024





In this insightful interview, award-winning photojournalist and filmmaker Ed Kashi dives deep into his journey from a first-generation American with Iraqi roots to becoming a globally renowned storyteller through photography. He reflects on the pivotal moments that shaped his career, from discovering his passion for photography at Syracuse University to capturing the raw realities of global conflicts and social issues. Kashi shares his thoughts on the challenges of photojournalism, the emotional toll of documenting human suffering, and the importance of empathy in his work. He also discusses his commitment to highlighting the positive stories that often go untold, particularly in underrepresented communities. This conversation is a powerful look into the life of a photographer who has dedicated his career to chasing narratives, both profound and personal.

Sunday, October 13, 2024

The Long Path Toward Establishing Indigenous People’s Day, a Day to Honor and Recognize the First Peoples of America

 Via Smithsonian Magazine

October 11, 2024

The Long Path Toward Establishing Indigenous People’s Day, a Day to Honor and Recognize the First Peoples of America

Native American Indians are committed to making Indigenous Peoples Day a national holiday in 2024.

This Monday, October 14, many Americans will celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day by recognizing the history and contributions of Native peoples. President Biden’s administration has officially recognized Indigenous Peoples' Day since 2021, but it is not yet a federal holiday. Thus, for the fourth year in a row, the United States will officially observe Indigenous Peoples Day alongside Columbus Day. However, The Indigenous Peoples' Day Act, reintroduced in Congress on October 2, 2023, would potentially designate the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day nationwide. The bill currently has 56 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and 11 cosponsors in the Senate.


“On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor the perseverance and courage of Indigenous peoples, show our gratitude for the myriad contributions they have made to our world, and renew our commitment to respect Tribal sovereignty and self-determination.” President Joseph Biden, 2023 Proclamation on Indigenous People’s Day


Looking back, generations of Native people throughout the Western Hemisphere have protested Columbus Day. In the forefront of their minds is the fact the colonial takeovers of the Americas, starting with Columbus, led to the deaths of millions of Native people and the forced assimilation of survivors. American Indian activists and their allies have long argued that Columbus Day, Columbus statues, and the discovery myth endorse his actions which include enslavement, torture and other atrocities to Native people.


In 1977, participants at the United Nations International Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas proposed that Indigenous Peoples’ Day replace Columbus Day as a national holiday. Indigenous Peoples’ Day recognizes that Native people are the first inhabitants of the Americas, including the lands that later became the United States of America. And it urges Americans to rethink history marking a change of course from previous administrations in their proclamations marking Columbus Day, which honors the explorer, Christopher Columbus.

The movement to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day or Native American Day has gained momentum and spread to states, cities, and towns across the United States. The first state to rename Columbus Day was South Dakota, in 1990. Hawai’i has also changed the name of its October 12 holiday to Discoverers’ Day, in honor of the Polynesian navigators who peopled the islands. Berkeley, California, became the first city to make the change in 1992, when the city council renamed Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. In 2015 an estimated 6,000 Native people and their supporters gathered at Randall’s Island, New York, to recognize the survival of the Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The demonstration’s success and the worldwide media attention it attracted planted the seeds for creating an Indigenous Peoples’ Day in New York City. According to the website RenameColumbusDay.org:

Approximate cities:  216
Approximate schools:  83
Approximate counties:  20
Approximate states not observing Columbus Day: 29, plus Washington, D.C., have renamed Columbus Day and adopted Indigenous Peoples' Day

Kentucky now has the most cities of any of the states, who have adopted Indigenous People’s Day, thanks to Indigenous Rights Activist Angela Arnette-Garner. Arnette-Garner said, “As a long-time Indigenous rights activist, I have lobbied city, county, and state governments in Kentucky for the passage of Indigenous Peoples Day proclamations (thus far 32 city, county, and state proclamations passed in Kentucky). This, in an effort to help educate people about Indigenous history and culture, encourage truthful dialogue about genocide, expose the shameful legacy of Christopher Columbus, repudiate the doctrine of discovery, and advocate for the decolonization of education. Yet, my ultimate goal in founding the Indigenous Peoples Day movement of Kentucky, is to demonstrate that if widespread support could be garnered in one of the most staunchly conservative states in the country, then establishment of a federal holiday is truly attainable. I fervently hope that Congress takes a serious look at the Indigenous Peoples Day movement of Kentucky.”

Universities and schools across the country are also observing the new commemoration. “Mythology about Columbus and the ‘discovery’ of the Americas continues to be many American children’s first classroom lesson about encountering different cultures, ethnicities, and peoples. Teaching more accurate and complete narratives and differing perspectives is key to our society’s rethinking its history,” stated Renee Gokey (Eastern Shawnee), NMAI Teacher Services Coordinator. In past years, the museum has hosted Indigenous Peoples’ Curriculum Days and teach-ins at the beginning of the school year in Washington DC and New York. Recently a Teach-In for Change was held at the National Museum of the American Indian in the Washington DC to prepare teachers on how to prepare for Indigenous Peoples Day. Links to additional resources are available through these links: National Museum of the American Indian, Native Knowledge 360°, Learning for Justice, and IllumiNative. These resources include curricula, sample lesson plans, books, and videos.

Throughout Indian Country, Indigenous Peoples Day is being observed through prayer vigils, parades, powwows, symposiums, concerts, lectures, rallies, and classrooms, all in an effort to help America rethink American history.


Dennis Zotigh | Dennis W. Zotigh (Kiowa/Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo/Isante Dakota Indian) is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Clan and San Juan Pueblo Winter Clan and a descendant of Sitting Bear and No Retreat, both principal war chiefs of the Kiowas. Dennis works as a writer and cultural specialist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.