Ernest Columbus Withers Sr. (1922 - 2007)

Born 7 Aug 1922 in Memphis, Shelby, Tennessee, United States

Died 15 Oct 2007 at age 85 in Memphis, Shelby, Tennessee, United States

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Biography

Ernest Withers Sr. is a part of US Black heritage.

Ernest Withers was an African-American photojournalist who documented over 60 years of African-American history primarily in the segregated Southern United States. His photos of the Civil Rights Movement, including the Montgomery bus boycott, and the Memphis sanitation strike, and the Emmitt Till trial, provide the rest of the nation with visual images of the violence of segregation.

He captured Negro League Baseball stars and players, and Afro-American musicians, including those related to Memphis blues and Memphis soul.

In 2010, it was revealed that Withers was recruited and paid by the FBI's COINTELPRO program to inform on the US Civil Rights Movement, which he did for nearly two decades, beginning shortly after his first photograph of Martin Luther King Jr.

Early Life

Ernest was the third of four children born to Arthur and Pearl Withers. His father was a truck driver for the City of Memphis and his mother was a maid, according to the 1930 US Census. Arthur was born in Mississippi and Pearl was from Tennessee.

Ernest began take photographs in high school after his older sister gave him a camera. He recieved formal training in photography while in the Army during World War II.

He met his wife, Dorothy Curry, while both were still in high school. They were married shortly after graduation and were together for 66 years. They raised seven sons and one daughter.

According to the 1950 US Census, Ernest worked as a policeman for the City of Memphis after his discharge from the service.

Career

Ernest was a freelance photojournalist for most of his career. His voluminous photo output, estimated between 1-5 million pictures, has been partially digitalized. Many are on display at the Withers Collection Gallery in Memphis Tennessee, the Panopitcon Gallery in Boston, Mass., as well as in the Smithsonian's African American Museum in Washington, D.C.

Chronicler of the Civil Rights Movement

Ernest traveled with Rev. Martin Luther King in the 1960's and took several iconic photos of King, including one him relaxing on a bed while reading a newspaper with the headline "King Takes over for Meridith."

Ernest also chronicaled Civil Rights Leader, Medgar Evers funeral in 1963 after Evers was assassinated in his driveway. He also photographed the integration of Little Rock High School by 9 black students in 1957.

The Music Scene

Ernest Withers was the official photographer for Stax Records, founded in 1957 in Memphis, for more than two decades. Stax Records focused primarily on Soul music, Memphis Blues and Funk genres and promoted singers and songwriters such as Otis Redding, Booker T. & the M.G.s, Sam and Dave, Moms Mabley, and the Staple Singers. Ernest took publicity photos and concert highlights, and the ever bustling Beale Street blues scene. He took both studio portraits of up-and-coming musicians and went inside the clubs for shots of live shows and their audiences. He photographed B. B. King, Aretha Franklin, Ike and Tina Turner, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, and Al Green, among others. In 1956 he photographed a young Mr. Presley arm in arm with B. B. King at a Memphis club.

The Emmitt Till Trial

Emmitt Till, a 14 year old boy from Chicago, had been visiting relatives in Dtew, Mississippi in August, 1955. Although the actual facts of what Till was accused of doing are still disputed, it was repirted that he had flirted with, and possibly touched a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, the co-owner of a gricery store. This broke the unwritten code of acceptable behavior between blacks and whites in the Jim Crow era in the southern US.

Several nights later, Emmitt Till was abducted from his uncle's home by Bryant's husband, Roy, and his half-brother, J. W. Milam. Till was beaten and mutilated before being shot in the head. His body was thrown into the Tallihassi River. It was discovered three days later.

Till's mother held an open casket, public funeral service for him back in Chicago, where tens of thousands attended or viewed images of the open casket, published by black newspapers across the country.

With the attention of the country on trial of Bryant and Milam, Ernest Withers joined the many journalists in covering the trial. His photo of a witness was taken in defiance of the judge's orders prohibiting photographs. It was published in many papers during the trial. Both defendents were found not guilty by an all white jury.

In 1956, Look magazine published a lengthy interview with both defendents who admitted they murdered Till, but because of the double jeopardy clauses in the law, could not be tried again.

FBI Documentation

After Ernest Withers' death, the Memphis newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, sought documents from the FBI regarding Withers possible involvement as an undercover informant. When the documents were reviewed most were heavily redacted. But an inference was made by the reporters that the informant referred to as ME 338-R(Ghetto) was actually Withers. This informant worked with the FBI from 1968-1970 and related some 19 reports and 10 photographs mostly concerning a militant group called the Invaders by the FBI. It is believed that the Invaders was code for the Civil Rights Movement.

Since the FOIA request was made after Withers death, he could not directly refute or support this story. However, in interviews and a PBS special, Withers did discuss that he had been interviewed by the FBI agents and was followed at times. He said he stayed away from meetings where strategy or decisions were made so he could not be used as an informant.

Other researchers have produced books and documentaries that establish Withers double role as both a chronicler and informat of the Civil Rights Movement.

Death

Ernest Withers died in 2007 from complications from a stroke. He us buried at the Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.

Sources

• Wikipedia-

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Withers

"United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SP7C-BQD : accessed 23 January 2023), Ernest Withers in household of Arthur E Withers, Memphis, Shelby, Tennessee, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 97, sheet 14A, line 43, family 29, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 2276; FHL microfilm 2,342,010.

1950 US Census- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6FSS-SX6M

The Intercept - https://theintercept.com/2019/02/28/ernest-withers-book-bluff-city/

Wikipedia- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till#Lynching

New York Times obituary- https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/arts/design/17withers.html

"Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVKN-V8S8 : 11 January 2023), Ernest Columbus Withers, ; Burial, Memphis, Shelby, Tennessee, United States of America, Elmwood Cemetery; citing record ID 39575329, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.