Flag Day, 2025

 

Flag Day is a holiday celebrated on June 14 in the United States. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress.

Throughout history, flags have elevated the emotional impact of images. 

Joe Rosenthal/©AP

Perhaps the most iconic of all flag photos is Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of six U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. It was taken on Friday, February 23, 1945, five days after the Marines landed on the island. Almost instantly, the image came to symbolize American courage, resilience, and unity in the face of adversity, becoming a powerful emblem of the nation's resolve during World War II.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Thomas E. Franklin documented three New York firefighters raising the American flag amid the wreckage of the fallen World Trade Center towers. Like Rosenthal’s photo, it was universally embraced, an uplifting photo that defined resilience and unity.

Thomas Franklin/©Bergen Record

The weaponization of the flag has similarly produced iconic photographs. In 1976, Stanley Forman photographed a white protester outside City Hall assaulting an African American attorney with the American flag. “The photo shocked Boston” made front pages across the U.S. and also won a Pulitzer Prize. Captioned “The Soiling of Old Glory”, to this day it offers a dramatic window onto the turbulence of the 1970s and race relations in America.

©Stanley Forman

Nearly fifty years later, on January 6, 2021, a weaponized American flag was documented once again. David Butow’s unsettling photo of Trump supporters attacking police from the steps of the Capitol is a modern echo of Forman’s Soiling of Old Glory.

©David Butow

And most recently, on February 22, 2025 – almost exactly 80 years to the day after Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photograph - Tracy Barbutes photographed an inverted American flag — historically used as a sign of distress — off the side of El Capitan, a towering rock formation in Yosemite National Park, hung to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service. Hundreds of visitors had gathered to photograph an annual phenomenon in the park known as firefall, when the setting sun causes a seasonal waterfall on El Capitan to glow orange. One spectator commented: “I feel like our national parks are national treasures, and they need to be protected, as does our democracy. It was a call to action and a call for hope.”

©Tracy Barbutes

©Ron Haviv

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react to results on election night, 2024 Washington D.C

©Mark Peterson

Ku Klux Klan New Member Meeting, Kentucky, May, 2025

Journalists are injured while covering the LA protests

 

June 9, 2025

Law enforcement injure at least 4 journalists covering protests in California amid federal crackdown

Several journalists have been injured while covering the protests in Los Angeles, including a television reporter who was struck when a law enforcement officer fired a nonlethal projectile while she was on the air

British photographer injured by 'plastic bullet' in LA protests

Australian journalist hit by 'rubber bullet' while reporting from LA

Chinese journalist hit by rubber bullet amid the Los Angeles conflict: report

Monroe Gallery Announces Representation of Tracy Barbutes Instantly Iconic Photograph of Upside Down Flag Protest At Yosemite National Park

 April 10, 2025

Monroe Gallery Announces Representation of Tracy Barbutes Instantly Iconic Photograph of Upside Down Flag Protest At Yosemite National Park

©Tracy Barbutes

An upside-down American flag hangs from El Capitan near Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Falls to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration, February 22, 2025

On February 22, 2025 – almost exactly 80 years to the day after Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photograph - Tracy Barbutes photographed an inverted American flag — historically used as a sign of distress — off the side of El Capitan, a towering rock formation in Yosemite National Park, hung to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service. Hundreds of visitors had gathered to photograph an annual phenomenon in the park known as firefall, when the setting sun causes a seasonal waterfall on El Capitan to glow orange. One spectator commented: “I feel like our national parks are national treasures, and they need to be protected, as does our democracy. It was a call to action and a call for hope.”

"Heading to Yosemite that Saturday, I had been told there might be some form of protest at El Capitan (Tu-tok-ah-nu-lah), the park’s iconic 3,000-foot granite monolith.

 There were unconfirmed reports that at least one recently-fired park employee would rappel with an American flag to protest his firing, as well as to protest the thousands of federal jobs lost due to the Trump administration/Elon Musk DOGE cuts. 

 The event would likely happen near Horsetail Fall, during “firefall” – a natural phenomenon that draws thousands of spectators each February. 

 I stood under El Cap, something I’ve done hundreds of times, and as I documented the unfurling of that upside down American flag, an act signaling distress, I couldn’t help but think of the paradox of the overall situation as we were gathered on colonized Indigenous land. 

 There wasn’t an immediate or overwhelming reaction from the crowd, though there was no missing the event. While intent on capturing a series of images, I was mindful that I was documenting a bold, courageous, historic act.

 It wasn’t until later that night and the next morning as the image went viral that I began to understand what those actions, and the image, meant. Did Nate Vance, the fired park employee behind the flag protest, and his cohorts, shake people out of a collective stupor and spark a movement of resistance." --  Tracy Barbutes

Barbutes is a photojournalist, writer, and wildfire photographer based near Yosemite.

This photograph will be on exhibit in the Monroe Gallery booth C8 at The Photography Show presented by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD)

Bing Guan Photograph Headlines NY Times Article "Columbia Campus Occupation Could Have Ended Without Police, Report Says"

 Via The New York Times

April 2, 2025

Guan's photograph was originally published in the NY Times May 1, 2024 edition.

Bing Guan

New York Police officers in riot gear enter Hamilton Hall at Columbia University, New York, May 1, 2024

Columbia University’s move to use police force to clear demonstrators from a campus building last spring could potentially have been avoided, as some students were urgently asking if they could leave voluntarily, according to a report released Tuesday by the university’s senate. --full article

Monroe Gallery will exhibit this photograph and other examples of Guan’s work at the 2025 Photography Show presented by AIPAD in booth #C8, April 23 – 27 at The Park Avenue Armory in New York City.

Ryan Vizzions' Iconic Standing Rock Photograph Featured in The Daly Climate Article on Greenpeace Verdict

 

Credit

Ryan Vizzions: "Defend The Sacred": Standing Rock, Cannon Ball, North Dakota, 2016

Via The Daily Climate

March 20, 2025

Greenpeace faces massive financial blow in pipeline lawsuit

EHN Curators


Greenpeace has been ordered to pay $667 million to the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline after a North Dakota jury found the environmental group defamed the company, a verdict that could have sweeping consequences for advocacy and free speech.

Anna Phillips reports for The Washington Post.

In short:The lawsuit stemmed from Greenpeace’s involvement in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, where Energy Transfer accused the group of inciting violence and damaging its reputation. Greenpeace denies these claims and plans to appeal.

Environmentalists warn the ruling could stifle activism, making groups wary of challenging fossil fuel projects. Experts say it sends a chilling message to climate protests that disrupt infrastructure.
The case is seen as part of a broader trend of corporations using strategic lawsuits (SLAPPs) to silence critics. Unlike more than 30 other states, North Dakota lacks laws discouraging such lawsuits.

Key quote:

“We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech.”

— Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal counsel for Greenpeace USA

Why this matters:

Beyond the courtroom, the stakes are high. This case isn’t just about Greenpeace — it’s about the future of environmental protest in an era of escalating climate crisis. If the ruling stands, the next time a pipeline spills or a fossil fuel project threatens communities, who will dare to sound the alarm?

Read more:Fossil fuel companies ramp up lawsuits to silence climate activists in Europe
Governments and corporations are intensifying pressure on environmental defenders
Sacred Water: Environmental justice in Indian Country

More in The New York Times

Winona LaDuke: DAPL Pipeline Lawsuit Against Greenpeace Aims to Silence Indigenous Protests, Too

 

Via Democracy Now!

As the oil company Energy Transfer sues Greenpeace over the 2016 Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, we speak with Indigenous activist Winona LaDuke, who took part in that historic uprising. LaDuke is an enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabe who lives and works on the White Earth Nation Reservation and was among the thousands of people who joined the protests in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to protect water and Indigenous lands in North Dakota. She highlights the close links between North Dakota’s government and Energy Transfer and says that while the lawsuit targets Greenpeace, Indigenous water and land defenders are also on trial. “North Dakota has really been trying to squash any kind of resistance,” says LaDuke. “If they can try to shut down Greenpeace, they’re going to shut down everybody.”

Media petition North Dakota Supreme Court for expanded access to Greenpeace trial

A Tough Start for Greenpeace in Court Fight With Pipeline Giant

John Olsen's "Women's March" Photo Featured In NY Times Magazine Essay

 Via The New York Times

November 2, 2024

 John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection: A 1970 march in New York City on the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, August 26, 1970

How Will White Women Vote? It’s a Question With a Fraught History.

White and Black women have joined together to power progressive causes — from abolition to civil rights — but it’s a tenuous alliance. --Click for full article

This photograph is featured in the current Monroe Gallery exhibition "The Best of Us".

Nina Berman Guided Tour Through Her Exhibition "We The People" At The Capa Space

Via The Capa Space

October 10, 2024

 

ARTIST TALK - Photographer Nina Berman will do a guided tour through her We The People exhibition for an inside look at the protest photographs she has been taking for over thirty years.  She will talk about what inspired her to turn her lens on protest in America and what she has learned about the people who organize and assert their right to protest. Sunday, October 20th 2024 @ 4pm. Suggested donation $10. 

 Click here to RSVP

WE THE PEOPLE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY NINA BERMAN

We the People brings together more than three decades of work by photographer Nina Berman who has tenaciously documented the public outrages, injustices, protestations and longings of a deeply dissatisfied and increasingly polarized society. What the United States should be, and for whom, are questions at the heart of Nina’s work and the 2024 election. September 8th - November 24th, 2024

At protests, police are increasingly arresting members of the press—especially those with cameras.

 

Via Columbia Journalism Review

October 7, 2024

Since the violence of last October 7—as the conflict between Israel and Palestine has grown deadlier, and spread more widely in the Middle East—it has also been, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker, a nonpartisan database of press freedom violations, a “protest year.” The visual journalists who cover demonstrations across America—photographers, videographers—are at the center of the action. “We have to get creative, go on the floor, shoot through cops’ legs, just to get that visual,” Madison Swart—a photojournalist in New York whose work has been published in Out and Cosmopolitan, among other places—told me. In May, while covering a pro-Palestinian protest, Swart was briefly detained by police officers—one of forty-three journalists who have been arrested in the past year, triple the previous number. According to Stephanie Sugars, a reporter for the US Press Freedom Tracker, “it has felt that the predominant number of incidents, at least since the protests started, are against people who are documenting visually in some capacity.”

--full article here.

WE THE PEOPLE, Photographs by Nina Berman

 Via The Capa Space

September 2, 2024

Nina Berman

The Fight for 15 protest in Long Island, NY 2016. 

We the People brings together more than three decades of work by photographer Nina Berman who has tenaciously documented the public outrages, injustices, protestations and longings of a deeply dissatisfied and increasingly polarized society. What the United States should be, and for whom, are questions at the heart of Nina’s work and the 2024 election. 

September 8th - November 24th, 2024

Opening Reception, Sunday September 8th, 4-6pm

THE CAPA SPACE

2467 Quaker Church Road

 Yorktown Heights, NY 10598

Des Moines city manager says free press is important as part of protest lawsuit settlement

 Via The Des Moines Register

August 27, 2024

The Des Moines city manager acknowledged the importance of the free press in a statement Tuesday on the heels of the city's settlement in a lawsuit brought by a news photographer whom police tackled and arrested during the 2020 George Floyd protests.

Des Moines leaders agreed to a mid-trial settlement last week with Mark "Ted" Nieters, a photojournalist who has covered conflict zones around the world. As part of the settlement, Nieters is set to receive $100,000, and City Manager Scott Sanders and Des Moines police spokesperson Sgt. Paul Parizek are required to issue statements about the importance of the free press.

Nieters' case stemmed from his arrest on June 1, 2020, when he was working as a freelance news photographer covering a large protest outside the Iowa Capitol. Police eventually ordered members of the crowd to leave and dispersed those who didn't, using tear gas.

Shortly afterward, as Nieters was walking away from the Capitol on Locust Street, Des Moines police officer Brandon Holtan tackled and detained him, despite Nieters telling him he was a journalist and showing him his press card, according to the lawsuit Nieters later filed against Holtan and the city.

Sanders fulfilled his requirement in a statement Tuesday, which reads:

"The City is grateful to the jury and the federal court for their time in a recent case they helped bring to a resolution. While the City Council will vote to approve the proposed settlement at its September 16 meeting, we are happy to put this case behind us and continue our important work moving the Des Moines Police Department forward in our continuing pursuit of excellence. The City acknowledges the importance of free press for our community, and the value and appreciation that the City has for the work the press does."

Link to article with video and photographs.

The man in front of the tank: How journalists smuggled out the iconic Tiananmen Square photo

 Tiananmen Square: How journalists smuggled out the iconic ‘Tank Man’ photo | CNN

Via CNN

June 4, 2024

"The journey of the photograph, too, captured the tension and fear of the time – involving smuggling equipment and film past authorities and across borders. By that point, the Chinese government was trying desperately to control the message going out to the world – and was trying to stop all American news outlets, including CNN, from broadcasting live from Beijing.

It was Monday, June 5, 1989, and Beijing was reeling from the crackdown the day before. Liu Heung-shing, the photo editor for the AP in Beijing, asked Jeff Widener to help get photos of Chinese troops from the Beijing Hotel – which had the best vantage point of the square, now under military control.

Widener had flown in from the news agency’s Bangkok office a week before to help with coverage, and was hurt when the crackdown began, he told CNN previously – after having been hit in the head by a rock, and laid low with the flu.

He set off, with his camera equipment hidden in his jacket – a long 400-millimeter lens in one pocket, a doubler in another, film in his underwear and the camera body in his back pocket.

“I’m biking towards the Beijing Hotel and there’s just debris and charred buses on the ground,” he said. “All of a sudden, there’s four tanks coming, manned by soldiers with heavy machine guns. I’m on my bicycle thinking I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“I hear rumors that other journalists had had their film and cameras confiscated. I had to figure out a way to get into the hotel,” he added. “I look inside the darkened lobby, and there’s this Western college kid. I walked up to him and whispered, ‘I’m from Associated Press, can you let me up to your room?’ He picked up on it right away and said, ‘Sure.’”

From there, Widener began photographing the tanks rolling by on the roads below – sometimes hearing the ring of a bell that signified a cart passing by with a body, or an injured person being taken to the hospital, he said.

Widener was at the window, preparing to photograph the column of tanks coming down the road, when “this guy with shopping bags walks out in front and starts waving the bags,” he said. “I’m just waiting for him to get shot, holding the focus on him, waiting and waiting.”

The tank stopped and tried to go around the man. The man moved with the tank, blocking its path once again. At one point during the standoff, the man climbed aboard the lead tank and appeared to speak to whoever was inside.

But Widener had a problem – the scene was too far away for his 400-mm lens. His doubler, which would allow him to zoom in twice as much, lay on the bed, leaving him a choice: Should he go grab the doubler, and risk losing the shot in those precious seconds?

He took the chance, got the doubler on the camera, took “one, two, three shots. Then it was over,” he said. “Some people came, grabbed this guy, and ran off. I remember sitting down on this little sofa next to the window and the student (Martsen) said, ‘Did you get it? Did you get it?’ Something in the back of my mind said maybe I got it, but I’m not sure.”

Liu remembers getting the call from Widener, and immediately firing off instructions: roll up the film, go down to the lobby, and ask one of the many foreign students there to bring it to the AP office.

The pictures were soon transmitted over telephone lines to the rest of the world.

Widener did, sending the student bicycling away with the film hidden in his underwear. Forty-five minutes later, “an American guy with a ponytail and a backpack showed up with an AP envelope,” said Liu. They quickly developed the film, “and I looked at that frame – and that’s the frame. It went out.”

Full feature here.

“I suppose for a lot of people it’s something personal, because this guy represents everything in our lives that we’re battling, because we’re all battling something,” Widener said. “He’s really become a symbol for a lot of people.”

Arrests of journalists already doubled over last year

 Via US Press Freedom Tracker Via US Press Freedom Tracker

May 31, 2024

"Friends of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker:

Welcome back to your newsletter around press freedom violations in the United States. Find archived editions here, and get this newsletter directly in your inbox by signing up here.One month later — arrests have doubled

In my last newsletter, I wrote about journalists covering local reaction to the Israel-Gaza war, noting that as April came to an end, we had documented 13 arrests or detainments of members of the press, and were actively reporting on more. Active, indeed: As of today, we’ve documented 36.

Importantly, the number of journalists arrested or detained so far this year — which is not even half over — is more than the last two years combined.

In addition to arrests, we’ve captured more than 30 assaults of journalists under our “Israel-Gaza war” tag since Oct. 7, 2023 — seven of those on student journalists — and nine reports of damaged equipment."

Full report here.

Jeff Widener's photo of a man standing in front of tanks in Beijing's Tiananmen Square has come to symbolize ordinary people standing up to power

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NPR (@npr)

 

Via NPR Throughline: Dare to Dissent

Originally aired December 14, 2023

This photo of a man standing in front of tanks in Beijing's Tiananmen Square has come to symbolize ordinary people standing up to power.

Want more? NPR's Throughline podcast has an entire episode on this topic. The link is here.

Mark Peterson Photographs For The New York Times Magazine

A pro-Palestinian protest on Columbia University’s campus this spring

Credit: Mark Mark Peterson

Via The New York Times Magazine

May 29, 2024

"When private universities set rules for what speech they allow, including when, where and how students can protest, they can impose more restrictions than the First Amendment allows in public spaces. But for decades, they have claimed free speech as a central value, and that promise has a particular history at Columbia. In 1968, the administration called in the police to evict student demonstrators from Hamilton Hall, which they had occupied in protest of the university’s involvement in military research and a new neighborhood-dividing gymnasium project in Morningside Park. For more than half a century now, campus activism and universities’ responses to it have mostly occurred within the paradigm shaped by 1968. But the upheavals on campuses across the country this spring were different. The campus war over the real war in Gaza did something no issue since Vietnam had done. It seemed to have prompted an abrupt rethinking of free-speech principles that many in academia assumed to be foundational.

For the first time since the Vietnam War, university demonstrations have led to a rethinking of who sets the terms for language in academia." ---full article

 

"The fact journalists were arrested for documenting events should concern all who believe in the free flow of information. "

 Via The Santa Fe New Mexican "Our View"

May 21, 2024

Journalists must be able to do their jobs

Journalists have no right to break the law in covering stories of public interest — that goes without saying even though the Constitution’s First Amendment clearly protects freedom of press. That freedom includes gathering the news, not just its publication.

Because of that protection, news reporters and photographers must be left alone to do their jobs. That’s especially true in a breaking-news situation in which impartial witness is essential. That’s one — but only one — reason police officers’ decision to arrest a reporter and photographer on the University of New Mexico campus while they documented the clearing of an encampment of student protesters is so distressing.

Independent journalist Bryant Furlow and photographer Tara Armijo-Prewitt — a married couple — were at the campus Wednesday morning to observe what likely would be the last days of the encampments. Furlow said he accompanied Armijo-Prewitt, who had been documenting the weeks-long protests, early Wednesday because UNM President Garnett Stokes had said the day before that police would be tearing the camps down.

Like reporters everywhere, Furlow wanted to be on the ground as news was happening. As with any potential clash between police and protestors, the public interest is clear. Journalists must be allowed to do their work. That did not happen last week.

According to a statement released through New Mexico In Depth — an online organization to which Furlow often contributes — the reporter gave his account of events, citing his request for information from officers on where to stand and his willingness to follow police instructions. He said he also informed officers he was a member of the media.

Nevertheless, both Furlow and Armijo-Prewitt were arrested.

The fact journalists were arrested for documenting events should concern all who believe in the free flow of information. Both state police and UNM campus police were involved in removing the encampments. Their bosses — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Stokes — should be investigating to find out why journalists doing their jobs and complying with officers were arrested.

The arrest after a reporter asked for a badge number and while photographing police actions is particularly troubling. It shows an apparent unwillingness on the part of police to have their actions documented for the public to see.

As Foundation for Open Government Executive Director Melanie Majors said, “If the media is arrested for doing their job, where does that leave the rest of us?”

The two, according to Furlow’s statement, were charged with criminal trespass and wrongful use of public property. They spent about 12 hours in custody after their arrests. Campus police made the arrests, and the correct action now is to drop the charges and apologize.

Further, given the tenor of the times — these protests are not going away — police at every level must be better educated about the rights of the media. Officers must understand they have no right to stop journalists from doing their jobs. In fact, when they do so, those officers are violating the Constitution.

There can be no freedom of the press without freedom to gather the news. Period.

 Statement from New Mexico reporter about his arrest at UNM encampment protest 

“Upon arriving on the scene, I asked officers where news media were permitted to stand to document the operation and did not receive an answer. I asked officers several times if there was a public information officer on scene with whom I could speak and was told there was not. I also inquired about who was in charge but got no response. We at all times followed instructions we received from police and stayed behind the yellow police tape. We were arrested while photographing the operation and shortly after asking an NMSP officer for his badge number and name. As I was being arrested, I said I was a member of the press repeatedly and loudly. 

“We spent approximately 12 hours in custody following our arrests. 

“We want to secure legal representation to fight the criminal charges before we speak further about our arrests.

“Thank you.” 

Columbia Student Journalists on the Front Lines of Gaza Protests

 

Via Vanity Fair

May 6, 2024

They’ve gotten a crash course in breaking news, capturing the Hamilton Hall occupation and the NYPD’s crackdown, while surviving on pizza and operating on little sleep. The students, says one professor, have “become professional journalists reporting on the biggest story right now, not only in the city, but in the nation.”

"Since the beginning of the encampment, Nina Berman, a professor and documentary photographer and filmmaker, had been doing nightly outings with students, training them in the field while also keeping them safe."

Related: Nina Berman Photographs "Columbia's Campus in Crisis: for The New Yorker

The Massacre at Kent State University

 

John Filo

Mary Vecchio grieving over slain student, Kent State, May 4, 1970

Via Field of View: Rarely-seen alternate angles of one of the most iconic photos in history.

"Bullets were whizzing over John Filo’s head during his lunch break from the student photo lab at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. He dropped his camera and stood motionless as National Guard troops suddenly opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War.

Thirteen seconds and sixty-seven shots later, four students were dead and nine wounded.

“Was I shot?” Filo wondered."  Full article here.

Via ABC News/AP: AP Was There: Ohio National Guard killed protesters at Kent State University

Here is one of the news stories the AP published at the time

Via KSU News: Remembering the May 4 shootings at Kent State University 54 years later

The 2024 May 4 events at KSU come as protests have been happening on campuses across the country, including Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Via Inside Higher Ed

The Long Shadow of May 4, 1970

The lessons of Kent State should not go unremembered

Gallery Photographer Nina Berman Photographs "Columbia's Campus in Crisis" for The New Yorker

 Via The New Yorker

May 2, 2024

Every day since the start of the encampment, Nina has come to campus with her camera, positioned herself inconspicuously in the crowd, and captured slices of this fraught and fractured moment in our history.

See more from Nina Bermans here.

Handcuffs and Barricades at Columbia, but No Reporters

 Via The New York Times

May 1, 2024

Whatever one’s views on the pro-Palestinian demonstrations sweeping the nation’s colleges, the decision by the New York Police Department on Tuesday to block journalists from witnessing its raid on Columbia University was a clear infringement of the First Amendment.

Members of the public have a right to know what their law enforcement authorities are doing on American campuses, and they were kept in the dark at a critical moment.  click for full article