The Atlantic

Why <em>Ebony</em> Magazine’s Archives Were Saved

The famed chronicler of black American life commissioned some of the most important photos in history—and they were almost lost to the public.
Source: Bettmann / Contributor

In a 1968 photograph taken by Moneta Sleet Jr., a veiled and stoic Coretta Scott King comforts her youngest child at the funeral of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr. It is 5-year-old Bernice King’s that haunt the viewer. The image, which was disseminated via dozens of wires, would become one of Sleet’s most iconic pictures. But it almost wasn’t taken: When arrangements for press-pool access to the funeral neglected to include a black photographer, Coretta Scott King insisted that Sleet—who’d photographed the King family for magazine since 1955—be let in or no

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