Bonsack Gallery: Wednesday, 4 April 2018

Bishop Jordan (AME Baptist Church), T.O. Jones (Head of Sanitation Workers) and Walker Reuther

(United Auto Workers) line up to lead protest march after death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memphis, TN. April 8, 1968. Ernest C. Withers; silver gelatin print;

MLK50: Bearing Witness

An evening to reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s death, John Burroughs School will host a
program on Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement at 6 pm, Wednesday, April 4, in Haertter Performing Arts Center.

The opening reception for a companion exhibit, “Bearing Witness: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement” will follow in the Bonsack Gallery.

The exhibit, “Bearing Witness: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement by Ernest C. Withers,” in the school’s Bonsack Gallery will feature compelling black-and-white photographs taken between 1961 and 1968. The exhibit will run through May 16, 2018.

Withers was the only photographer who covered the entire trial of those charged with killing Emmett Till, a black teenager wrongly accused of whistling at a white woman, and Withers’ self-published photo pamphlet of the murder and trial helped spur the movement for equal rights. Over the course of his career, Withers accumulated a collection of an estimated 1.8 million photographs. His work appeared in publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, Jet, Ebony, Newsweek, Life, and Time; was collected in four books; and has been featured in touring exhibits and shows around the world. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., currently displays more than 30 of his images.

Regular gallery hours are 8 am to 5 pm, weekdays.

The Bonsack Gallery

on the campus of John Burroughs School

755 South Price Road

St. Louis, MO, 63124