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.
by Syreeta McFadden
Jul 31, 2019
3 minutes
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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