And newly disclosed records show that one of the most prominent photographers of the civil rights era, Ernest Withers, was also a paid informant for the FBI. According to the Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Withers worked closely with the FBI to monitor civil rights activists during the 1960s. Withers is said to have provided photographs, background information and scheduling details to two agents in FBI’s Memphis spying office. Withers photographed Dr. Martin Luther King at several marches and was the only photographer to cover the entire trial of those accused in the murder of the black teenager Emmett Till. In January 2007, months before his death, Amy Goodman interviewed Ernest Withers at his studio in Memphis, Tennessee. He talked about one of his most famous pictures: a mass of striking sanitation workers holding signs reading “I am a man” at what would turn out to be the last march led by Dr. King.
Ernest Withers: “The last march of his, of Martin King, they were lined up there at [inaudible] and Hernando outside of Cleveland Temple Church, and they were there with all those ’I’m a Man’ signs. And I thought it was dramatic and historic in what it was, but I didn’t know it was ending up to be as popular. But it was the last march of Martin King.”
Withers’s alleged involvement was revealed because the FBI forgot to redact his name in declassified records discussing his collaboration.
Whatever Withers’ reasoning, his legacy of images undoubtedly worked to further the cause. A slide show of selected photos can be seen here. Unfortunately, his natal chart suggests his motives were self-serving at best; please see Eric’s comment below for the link to that chart. — Amanda
I’d try spraying with white vinegar solution and letting sit with as much sun shinging on as possible – as many sprays over time as long as it takes.
I’ve removed vile strong oders from non-washable garmets like leather jackets (purchased from thrift store) this way with great success.
You just have to give the vinegar time. Also will help to dissipate the chemicals in that shit.
Oh, in that case baking soda would be good.
I don’t use stuff like that.
Well it turns out to be carpet shampoo — in my car. I don’t want to cover it with another perfume, I want to remove it, so they’re going to do hot water rinses tomorrow.
As for Febreze, never touch the stuff. It doesn’t come out. And it’s toxic.
Have you tried incense?
ha! Is that a Mars thing?
My daughter just blew up (college financial aid hasn’t all come through as planned), my son just blew up (privacy!) and a pot of not-growing too well lettuce disintegrated in my hands in the open doorway (going to the trash).
I threw out the pot shards – but left Mother Earth strewn over my door stoop…..feeling, as it were, that she had need to speak.
(smashing, just smashing)
Eric,
Your High Noon chart innovation is an inspiration. Your interpretation takes my breath away. Thank you for the teaching.
btw — amanda posted this — I just read it today and wrote my reply tonight. His Earnestness Withers away.
I need to smash something. Maybe some windows in Bliss Hall at SUNY New Paltz.
(that isi) …..good reason to be able to do so. (Otherwise, why have paid “the price” of the lessons?)
eric,
your work is profound (ly important) –and what you have brought to light makes me sick in my soul…..the history of lies in this country is thicker than we may ever (need to) know.
Thank you for this – interesting to me that the same evening you posted this I was researching a topic wherein I discovered an author who has remarkable fluency on his subject….then I discovered the background of said author.
Talk about knowing who your source is……
For some reason the universe spent the last two decades teaching me to sniff out lies. Maybe I’m still not so good – but certainly hoping there is good reason.
This is extremely disturbing. Here is someone who had the absolute trust of the people he was photographing and yet was betraying them at every turn. What motivated him? Well, the money was part of it, but his chart tells a deeper story of someone who always has a second motive operating behind the scenes; look at the positions of Nessus (conjunct Chiron) and Pholus (conjunct Mars) in a grand trine. This is an extremely slick person. The grand trine is in the fire signs (pure charisma) and the planets involved are: Sun, Mercury, Neptune / Nessus, Chiron / Mars, Pholus. This evokes the “you lie and I’ll swear to it” attribute of the trine. Let’s just say he could have done a lot more with his life.
He is smooth on the exterior but internally polarized — look at that Full Moon, which ‘breaks’ the grand trine; as does Jupiter/Pallas — he has a kite pattern in two different directions (a kite is something that opposes one element of a grand trine). Yet even Jupiter has the ulterior motive — conjunct Pallas. He is a political animal. Everything he does is consciously connected to a strategy and he personally benefits from that strategy. You can be sure that the people he was photographing told him more than the FBI could find out any other way. I would gamble any amount of money that he was one of their very best assets. This makes me want to cry.
His Sun, by itself, tells you a lot: exactly conjunct Mercury and Neptune: a real shapeshifter, living in a fantasy world of image, intrigue and subversion. This allowed him to be proud to be a “black activist” at the same time he was a sellout to make Uncle Tom envious.
His photographs — every one of them — are symbols of who he betrayed. They are an accounting of those individuals and movements that he poisoned with his abusive trust and forked tongue. Just picture him, this elegant looking African American man, sitting with his bosses at the FBI, telling the secrets of his sisters and brothers, and walking out of the room with an envelope full of cash. I would like to know who was killed, who was lynched, whose lives were destroyed, whose marriages were ruined, due to his betrayal.
The photographs of the people he portrays would be like Dr. Mengele taking beautiful living portraits of the children he murdered and did live experiments on; one would not put that book on the coffee table.
Withers was very likely involved (whether he knew the name or not) in an FBI program called COINTELPRO, which was at its peak of operations at the time, and which had the role of disrupting — of up-ending by any possible means — the movement for black equality and others. COINTELPRO subverted and destroyed the Black Panthers and many other movements for social justice. It basically ended the Sixties and may be the program that killed Martin Luther King; it certainly spied on him enough and Withers was one of those spies. Here we see a photo of the “last march” of Dr. King. My question is, did he know? And did one iota of information assist in the assassination? He was there that night.
The following is a paragraph from Wikipedia describing COINTELPRO that is consistent with what I have read from other sources:
Shanna, Kyla,
Pallas Athene is Protector of the Country and she’s conjunct the Moon (the people) in the U.S. Sibly chart. Neptune (sea, confusion) is transiting Pallas, with exact conjunction this Saturday on 9/18.
Transiting Chiron (healing, teaching, wounding) will conjunct the U.S. Moon (people) on Saturday, 9/18.
Ceres is about food and food supplies and the U.S. progressed Ceres is at 28 Pisces. On Saturday, 9/18, transiting Jupiter (make known, largeness) will conjunct transiting Uranus (surprise and shock) at 28 Pisces 43.
Transiting Mercury (written/spoken word) in Virgo (health) will oppose U.S. Ceres (food) in Pisces (water) on Sunday, 9/19. U.S. Ceres is conjunct U.S. Nessus (poison) and they square U.S. Uranus (shock, surprise) which will form a T-square with transiting Mercury (written/spoken word).
Transiting Ceres (food) in Sagittarius (understanding) is now squaring transiting Jupiter and Uranus in Pisces (and progressed U.S. Ceres), but sextiling transiting Neptune and Chiron in Aquarius. She will be conjunct the Galactic Center/Core on Sunday, 9/26 so we should get the truth as to why this is happening at that time.
be
I did see that headline about the fish kill, interesting that it is so across species lines but then, look where it is and what would we expect?
A further tangent on the theme of ‘ the truth revealed’: that guy who was gonna burn a Koran and was thwarted by a Unitarian skateboarder has a day job as an armed guard, protecting plutonium at a nuclear facility. Yikes.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/koran-burner_thwarted_by_skateboarder_has_day_job.php
Tangentially, has anyone picked up on the story out yesterday of a massive fish kill discovered in Plaquemines Parrish, LA? Apparently fish kills are not common, but when they do happen they usually consist of a single species of fish. This kill included several, and crabs, etc. A dead whale even showed up in a nearby location.
The picture is stunning. You think you’re looking at an asphalt road until you realize you’re actually looking at a “sea” of dead fish.
Here’s the LINK.
Aword, I agree, it feels wrong that this “mistake” was made. As in, likely intentional, says my bones……
Then again, maybe not such a bad thing in the event……… maybe some stimulated attention to that whole historical period as well as to photos such as this extremely moving one (thank you Amanda for posting that) will be a good thing, feed the awareness some good food, like.
Thanks, Amanda.
Mr. Withers was most likely not the only black man (who may have been) put between a rock and a hard place. His photos feel like someone who was “there” in spirit as well, so perhaps he was given a deal he couldn’t refuse and sought to create some good in that.
As Amanda notes, we will never know.
I find it “interesting” however that his name was not removed from those declassified FBI files. THAT seems like a non-mistake intended to undermine the good-will of his work and what it represents.
Thanks for the post, Amanda.
indeed, len!
i almost think i should have added a P.S. to the title: “Or is it?”
obviously we are not likely to ever know the truth behind withers’ decision. maybe there was someone else he was trying to protect? maybe it was his “deal with the devil” to be able to get some of the photographs he did without hassle? did the FBI have some dirt on him?
who knows.
but just as the current “anti-sixties” has its bright spots and crusaders for the common good, so must the original sixties have its shadows and compromised figures. nothing is simple, so maybe this is just a reminder against idealization of eras and people.
at the very least, his images were a force for good and progress. i’m not going to hazard a guess as to whether the ends justified the means.
Amanda,
Thank you for catching this story on the fly and making the astrological connection. Must say that i’m still shaking my head. Back them the FBI was J. Edgar Hoover and he was not concerned about the law or public safety. His vendetta against Dr. King was personal and pernicious. Knowing that (as he must, must have) what could Mr. Withers have been thinking? One does not protect others from evil by trafficking with evil.