James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner posthumously receive Presidential Medal Of Freedom

Bill Eppridge: Mrs. Chaney and young Ben, James Chaney funeral, Meridian, Mississippi, 1964

Via Gothamist

Today, President Obama is presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the county's highest civilian honor, to a number of people, like economist Robert Solow, actress Meryl Streep, musician Stevie Wonder, choreographer Alvin Ailey (in a posthumous honor) and composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. But three people are not celebrities, notable scientists or politicians—they were three young men who were murdered while registering black voters during the "Freedom Summer" of 1964.

The White House press release noted that the medal is "presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors" and noted the honorees' work:

James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were civil rights activists and participants in “Freedom Summer,” an historic voter registration drive in 1964. As African Americans were systematically being blocked from voter rolls, Mr. Chaney, Mr. Goodman, and Mr. Schwerner joined hundreds of others working to register black voters in Mississippi. They were murdered at the outset of Freedom Summer. Their deaths shocked the nation and their efforts helped to inspire many of the landmark civil rights advancements that followed.

Chaney, from Mississippi, and Goodman and Schwerner, of New York, were traveling in Philadelphia, Mississippi, to investigate the burning of a black church, when they were arrested for speeding. They were, the NY Times reports, "slain after their release from jail in what is believed to have been a Ku Klux Klan ambush. Their bodies were found 44 days later buried in an earthen dam." Their deaths are "widely seen as helping inspire the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act the same year."

The men who shot and buried the three were convicted of civil rights violations, but not murder. In 2005, Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood revisited the case and tried Edgar Ray Killen, considered the ringleader in the murders. Killen was ultimately convicted of manslaughter, but not murder. During Killen's trial, Goodman's mother read a postcard her son, an Upper West Sider who had been a student at Queens College, sent to her on June 21, 1964, the last day of his life, "Dear Mom and Dad, I have arrived safely in Meridian, Miss. This is a wonderful town, and the weather is fine. I wish you were here. The people in this city are wonderful, and our reception was very good. All my love, Andy."

Killen, 89, is serving a 60-year prison sentence.

Related: June 21, 1964: The Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner

A four block stretch of the Upper West Side, west of the West End Avenue, was carved out in 1967 to created "Freedom Place," to pay tribute to Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. A plaque pay tribute to their how the men gave "their lives in the unending struggle for freedom and democracy."

John Doar, Federal Lawyer in Battle Against Segregation, Dies at 92

Charles Moore: James Meredith is escorted to registrationat the University of Mississippi by Chief US Marshall James McShane and Assitsant Attorney General for Civil Rights John Doer, 1962

--Via The New York Times

John Doar, who was a leader in the federal government’s legal efforts to dismantle segregation in the South during the most volatile period of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and who returned to government service to lead the team that made the constitutional case for the possible impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 92.

He escorted James Meredith onto the campus of the University of Mississippi in 1962, even as then-Gov. Ross Barnett and angry crowds sought to keep the school segregated. Doar later was the lead prosecutor in the federal trial arising from the deaths of three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner. Those killings inspired the 1988 film "Mississippi Burning."

Full obituary here.




Related: June 21, 1964: The Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner

FREEDOM SUMMER

 

 

 

 

 

In the hot and deadly summer of 1964, the nation’s eyes were riveted on Mississippi.

 

 



Over ten memorable weeks known as Freedom Summer, more than 700 student volunteers joined with organizers and local African Americans in an historic effort to shatter the foundations of white supremacy in Mississippi, the nation’s most segregated state. The summer was marked by sustained and deadly violence, including the notorious murders of three civil rights workers, countless beatings, the burning of thirty-five churches, and the bombing of seventy homes and community centers.

In the face of this violence, these organizers, volunteers, and Mississippians worked together to canvass for voter registration, create Freedom Schools, and establish an alternative challenge to the State Democratic Party — the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Borne of Freedom Summer, and in response to the challenges of registering voters directly within hostile Mississippi, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party registered its own voters outside of the discriminatory system, ultimately sending a delegation of 68 members to attend the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City to confront and unseat the all-white delegation.

Directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Stanley Nelson (Freedom Riders, The Murder of Emmett Till), FREEDOM SUMMER highlights an overlooked but essential element of the Civil Rights Movement: the patient and long-term efforts by both outside activists and local citizens in Mississippi to organize communities and register black voters — even in the face of intimidation, physical violence and death. The Freedom Summer story reminds us that the movement that ended segregation was far more complex than most of us know.

American Experience will broadcast the film this summer, which marks both the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer and the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision, which struck down key protections afforded by the landmark civil rights legislation borne of the political momentum generated by this historical movement — The Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Join  the Bronx Documentary Center this Saturday, July 12, at 8:15 PM for Freedom Summer
Film by Emmy award-winner Stanley Nelson followed by panel discussion with veterans of the 1964 Freedom Rides. The event is part of the Bronx Documentary Center’s summer exhibition and program series, The 60s: Decade of Change.

Watch online via PBS here.

Related: June 21, 1964: The Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner

 

"a celebration of the LIFE magazine photographer who famously shadowed an unknown act in the US on February 1964, The Beatles"



 Screaming Girls, JFK Airport, NY, Febraury 7, 1964.

Copyright Bill Eppridge

“Ladies and Gentlemen The Beatles!”

The Santa Fe Reporter

April 22, 2014

By Enrique Limón

 

Hot off the heels of When Cool Was King, Monroe Gallery of Photography unveils their latest, Bill Eppridge: 1964, a celebration of the LIFE magazine photographer who famously shadowed an unknown act in the US on February 1964, The Beatles.

 

Eppridge was at John F Kennedy airport on assignment for the mag. After consulting with John Lennon, Ringo Starr gave the OK to Eppridge to shadow the group for the next few days and exposed American masses to the British sensation.

 

“Bill never set pictures up; he liked to find pictures and make pictures that way,” Eppridge’s widow Adrienne Aurichio tells SFR.

 

Eppridge’s assignment was just to capture the Fab Four’s arrival. “But nobody expected what happened out there,” she says of the group of rabid fans, some 3,000 strong. 

 

“Bill was somebody who actually did a lot of photo essays,” Aurichio continues. “He liked to do stories in-depth, which is why he stayed with The Beatles for six days.” 

 

The photographer’s gumption paid off and resulted in iconic shots like the group hanging out inside their room at the Plaza Hotel, practicing for their career-making debut on The Ed Sullivan Show and later performing at Carnegie Hall.

 

Those shots are now immortalized in the book The Beatles: Six Days that Changed the World, which Aurichio edited before her husband’s untimely death in October of last year.

 

Aurichio presents and signs the book at the art opening this Friday.

 

“When he saw things happening, he would just follow the story,” she says of her late husband’s approach. “He would try and tell the story as if he were describing it to you and you as a writer would write it. He wanted to show you the story in his pictures, so he would methodically go about it.”

 

Bill Eppridge: 1964

5-7 pm Friday, April 25

Monroe Gallery of Photography

112 Don Gaspar Ave.,

992-08

The Beatles: Six Days that Changed the World. February 1964

 

Release date: February 4, 2014
Published by Rizzoli



To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first visit to the United States.



"One morning my boss said, 'Look, we've got a bunch of British musicians coming into town. They're called the Beatles.'" Bill Eppridge was at John F. Kennedy airport on February 7, 1964 for the arrival of The Beatles. He continued to photograph The Beatles that day, and over the next several days. He was invited to come up to their room at the Plaza Hotel and "stick with them." "These were four very fine young gentlemen, and great fun to be around," Eppridge recalled. After he introduced himself to Ringo, who consulted with John, the group asked what he wanted them to do while being photographed for Life. "I'm not going to ask you to do a thing," was Eppridge's reply. "I just want to be here." --Bill Eppridge (Read more from the New York Times Lens Blog here.)

©Bill Eppridge The Beatles arrive, February 7, 1964, New York

 





Astonishing, richly spontaneous, and almost entirely unpublished images of the Beatles’ historic first trip to the United States, as chronicled by an award-winning photographer given unique access to their tour. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles’ first visit to the United States, this rare and mostly unseen collection of photographs marks the beginning of the British Invasion. In February 1964, photographer Bill Eppridge was on assignment for Life magazine to cover the band’s arrival at JFK airport. He was then invited to continue shooting in their room at the Plaza Hotel and during the days that followed, notably at the Ed Sullivan Show rehearsal and historic performance; in Central Park; on a train ride to Washington, D.C., for the concert at the Washington Coliseum; at the British embassy; and at their renowned performance at Carnegie Hall. The book is an intimate fly-on-the-wall account of a visit that introduced the Beatles to America and changed the course of music, internationalizing the industry and opening the door for other artists to achieve global success.

 

Bill Eppridge completed the book with his wife and editor Adrienne Aurichio just before his untimely death in October, 2013. Bill Eppridge's photographs of the Beatles 1964 trip will be featured in the exhibition "Bill Eppridge: 1964", April 25 - June 22 at Monroe Gallery of Photography. The exhibit includes other landmark stories Eppridge covered that year: The 1964 Newport Folk Festival, "Mississippi Burning": the funeral of James Chaney, and Needle Park.



Monroe Gallery of Photography will exhibit Bill Eppridge's photographs in booth #421 during the AIPAD Photography Show in New York April 10 - 13.


Copies of  "The Beatles: Six Day That Changed the World" signed by Adrienne Aurichio are available from the gallery.




Related: NY TIMES Lens: The Beatles Visit, Revisited

              LA Times: The intimate unseen Beatles photographs of Bill Eppridge

              CBS Lost Beatles photographs found

              Exhibit captures U.S. debut of The Beatles


   CNN Landmark show, golden glow: 50 years since The Beatles on 'Ed Sullivan

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40 years later, Mississippi waiter's 'magical moment' renews race relations

 Mississippi: A Self-Portrait
Via NBC Dateline


"He came to me one day and said, 'I got a wonderful black man. His name is Booker Wright. And he's a waiter at Lusco's Restaurant. And what he does, is a minstrel scene. He does a singsong of the menu. And that's the only menu they have. People wanna know the menu, they get, 'Booker, go tell 'em.' And he'll sing them the song of the menu. And it's absolutely delightful.'"

Once Frank saw Booker Wright perform the menu recitation, he arranged to film the routine the next day. So Booker Wright recited the menu for Frank's camera. Then, without warning, he shifted gears and launched into a monologue that had been 40 years in the making:

"Now that's what my customers, I say my customers are expecting from me," he began. "Some people nice. Some is not. Some call me Booker. Some call me John. Some call me Jim. Some call me @!$%#! All of that hurts but you have to smile. The meaner the man be the more you have to smile, even though your're crying on the inside.

"You're wondering what else can I do. Sometimes he'll tip you, sometimes he'll say, ‘I'm not gonna tip that @!$%#, he don't look for no tip.’ I say, 'Yes sir, thank you.' I'm trying to make a living."

For nearly two minutes, Booker Wright, spoke straight to the camera, and straight from the heart.
       
"Night after night I lay down and I dream about what I had to go through with. I don't want my children to have to go through with that. I want them to get the job they feel qualified. That's what I'm struggling for," Booker concluded.

"I went there to photograph a minstrel show," Frank says, "And I stayed there to hear a man talking about his life and what his dreams are. And it was so moving."

Related video:  Former NBC News producer Frank De Felitta recalls a time he and his film crew faced some real danger in 1960s Mississippi

EXHIBITION OPENING TONIGHT

© Bill Eppridge: The Chaney family as they depart for the burial of James Chaney, Meridian, Mississippi, August 7, 1964

Exhibition Celebrates 2011 Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Photojournalism Recipient Bill Eppridge. Join us at tonight's opening reception from 5 to 7 PM at 112 Don Gaspar Avenue.


More here.

View available Bill Eppridge prints here.