smithsonian associates. to our members, i'm so glad that you're here. it's your support that makes events like tonight's possible. and to the many of you joining us for the first time, equally warm welcome and an invitation to explore the wide range of programs we offer here at smithsonian associates. before we begin, now is the perfect time to turn off your cell phone or anything else that might make noise during the program. thank you for doing that. in february of 2016, a team of "new york times" staffers discovered dozens of unpublished photographs in the newspaper's archive. some of these were published in a hugely popular multimedia series, "unpublished black history." the month-long series explored the history behind the photos garnering 1.7 million views and thousands of comments from readers. we're thrilled to welcome tonight two of the authors involved with creating the book inspired by their discovery. "unseen: unpublished black history from "the new york times" photo archives" which is available for purchase and signing following the program. darcy eveleigh is a contributing photo editor at "the new york times" and creator and editor of "the lively morgue," a "times" blog and tumblr series. rachel swarn strkss is a contri writer for the noo"the new yor." moderating the conversation this evening is rhea l. combs, curator of film and photography at t . she also serves as the head of the museum's earl w. and amanda stafford center for african-american media arts. now please join me in welcoming darcy eveleigh, rachel swarns and rhea combs. >> i would like to echo lauren's wonderful comment and say thank you so much for joining us tonight. i think we're in for a delightful conversation. i'm so thrilled to be here with both of these two dynamic women and i want to just sort of start off by asking you to kind of give us the context and situate how you were able to sort of as lauren said uncover and find so many photographs that hadn't been published before. >> well, our co-author, dana kennedy, another writer in the book, had come to me -- can you hear? >> no. >> okay. is that better? hello? >> more. >> okay. how we doing? okay. everyone can hear me now? sorry. my co-author, dana kennedy, approached and asked if there was something that we could do from "the new york times" photo archives that would be of interest to young african-american readers, and immediately i thought of an idea, a couple years prior to that, the former "new york times" picture editor john godfrey morris, he was 95 years old, he came to visit the "times" and i had an opportunity to sit with him for an hour. i asked john, is there anything in the archive i should be going back to look for? and john immediately grew a little agitated and said, go back and re-edit everything. he said they didn't let us run the right pictures, they had to edit for space constraints for the print newspaper. they had to edit for the style of the "times" of the day which was a stiffer picture, somebody clearly looking at the picture. john knew what was left behind. when dana approached and said is there something in there, i said, oh, yes, there's something in there. rachel, dana, other co-author, dana and i, who could we make who the "times" would have covered, started with martin luther king, rosa parks, familiar names you'd expect us to. what happened is the discovery beyond that, accidental finds, names we never in a millionilli years expected. the ordinary people, that's really what drew us in many. and eventually the book started to take shape because we wanted to include those unknown people. >> so how long did this process take? i mean, how many photographs are we talking about? >> the "times'" archive, they know they have 10 million print photographs in the archives. 10 million. of that 10 million, about a third of them are from "new york times" staff photographers, about one-third are from the wire agencies like associated press, getty images and so on. another third for handout photos meaning photos from theaters or corporations. >> like publicity. >> publicity-type images. so nin addition to that. i figure if you have 3.5 million staff photographs, they had the negatives stored from the events. if one print got made, there's potentially 36 frames, 35 frames left over or more. we'll show you some examples in the book. some of the photographer erers out and shot hundreds of rolls of film -- >> we're talking early 20th century through present. >> i believe we hired the first -- >> i believe it was 1920s. the negatives collection is pretty well intact from about the late 1940s on. there was a period of calling in the early years unfortunately. from about the 1940s on. >> so with this sort of call to do something for black history month or related, you have this kind of thought in your mind from your conversation -- >> yes. >> -- and then a team of colleagues came together and went through 3 million photographs? >> i got to ask how many i went through. i don't really know. i spent months curled up on the floor with sacks of negatives and a lip going what is this? >> sounds fantastic. >> when we started the idea was, we had an image or series of images every day for month of february. that was offer our idea. we thought there would be images that had never seen the light of day before. that was awesome and you'll get to see that. it was also an opportunity for us to look at "the new york times" as an institution and about how we covered and didn't cover african-americans. and so basically we were -- it was -- it was kind of a scramble in that first month or so as we were -- first few weeks. darcy started in november. year sitting around a table in january. and literally, you know, going through images and then afterwards, for the book. >> so the -- but the initial intention was for it to just live online. >> yes. >> and in print. >> and in print as -- and for interactivity. >> that's right. >> social engagement. >> i think we realized very soon after, though, that this could be more than that because there was such an incredible response to these images. you know, people saw themselves in some of these images. some of the parade photos. we actually asked people to engage with the images. and right away, people said, how can we get them? and, you know, we were realizing, oh, goodness, we have to make these available. >> so i would like to ask sort of how did you go about, then, crafting and conceptualizing? because when you have such a vast amount and at the initial rate, sort of thought, was unpublished work. so can you kind of talk us through either how you had to triangulate the fact it was unpublished and/or how you conceptualized what got in, you know, you already mentioned, rachel, it was, like, one a day. i mean, beyond that, for the book. >> sometimes, you know, we have amazing images. what was interesting to us as a process, too, though, were the images that we couldn't find. the people who weren't there. and the reasons why, perhaps, they weren't there. you know, there were, you know, most of our photographers were based in new york. and so -- we had some in washington, too. but, you know, we're talking about a period of time where we have most of these images from the '40s on, but we did not h e have -- or have not yet to find, which might be the better way of saying it when you've got millions and millions, but romeo bearden, the photographer, the artist, rather, richard wright, wbd debois. >> it was in the beginning what -- >> that's what it was. >> we found one of the first things we went to go look for was martin luther king. >> low-hanging fruit. >> that's right. >> what happened, i started with the most popular photo that i knew of him which was a por chat the "times can the "ran, must have ran that picture hundreds of times. i went to go re-edit it when i expected to see a portrait series. he was at a roundtable event. he was speaking. he left the event and he was attacked. he was egged. the next day there was a "page 1 story" in the paper at the top of the page about the attack. happened in brooklyn. there was no photograph. the photograph shot that day was a picture of him. it didn't make sense for the story. it didn't rub rn. it was some distance shots of this roundtable event that the press photographers took. at the end of the event, they walked out the door, they went home. they weren't there. they had gone home already. they're like, i got my shot, i'm leaving, i'm out of here. and that, to me, sort of epitomizes what happens sometimes when the press isn't there. >> i was just going to say, i mean, in a way that sort of speaks to what -- at the time perhaps was deemed newsworthy. >> exactly. >> this wasn't a newsworthy p k picture. it was such a beautiful portrait that the next time a portrait was needed, it was the go-to. it became the go-to for 50 years it became a go-to portrait. >> you were able to find other surprises even within what we would consider low-hanging fruit. we know we'll have a fphoto of this then there are these surprise stories. >> part of what we wanted to look at, too, is think about how the choices were made. after all, these were know toph amazing know te inine ining pho unpublished. why? we have photos of prominent people then we looked and talked about, well, why didn't this -- we'll show you some of these. that was -- and that was kind of a lot of the exercise was, you know, well, why? and there are many, many reasons why. we were a newspaper that was dominated by text. it was not the kind of newspaper that we are now. and i think that's what photo editor was saying is they were limited sometimes. sometimes it just practical. you only had so much space. sometimes you had issues with getting film somewhere. then there were harder questions where we did wonder, you know, and darcy's a photo editor, you know, we're researchers, reporters, saying why wasn't that person there, or looking at the photo that was published and the one that didn't get published and saying, hmm. you know, we were a big institution at a time when american institutions were marginalizing people of color. and so, you know, there was some of that in some of these instances, too. >> that was -- as you were speaking, i was wondering, did your research allow you to sort of look as you're theorizing as to why some images were in and some weren't? did you look at other publications like the "washington post" or "l.a. times" or others that may and see if they ran a different image of the same story? >> i did some research both with the "daily news" imagery and with the amsterdam news imagery. the amsterdam news, being a black paper, covered everything and had one photographers. i did not go through the "washington post" archives but looking more at the locals, we covered local stories. it was quite a difference between the coverage of the "tim "times" and coverage of these different organizations. again, the "gray lady." ours were 1,500-word stories. so, you know, the advertising was taking up the art space on the page. >> fascinating. i would love to see if maybe we can go through some of the images and there may be some stories. before we get into that, i'd ask each of you, is there an image that didn't -- you know, in this cooperative experience where you all are working as a team, you know, trying to get these selections for the book, was there one that each of you would have loved to have been in there, a story that didn't make the cut that you would love to share with us? . >> i know you talked about music, right? >> it's not a singular image. it's a category for me. we had amazing coverage of music and jazz at "the new york times." they sent a lot of energy sending photographers to these events, and at the end of our ordering this book, we realized we had so much music that i left some behind. i thought, i didn't want this to be strictly a book about that genre. >> right, or leaning in that -- >> the collection of music photography there is spectacular. >> so that does beg the question, though, how did you all sort of, you know, go about conce conceptual -- not the conceptual, the ordering, organizing, the process of sort of figuring out. >> we didn't want a book that was going be like politics. music. sports. we didn't want that. part of the -- part of the experience that was really wonderful for us as journalists was the discovery, really. you know, we were looking and sometimes we found stuff, sometimes we didn't. sometimes we thought we didn't have it then darcy did find it and i think we really wanted readers and viewers to have that sense of surprise. >> yep. each page, you wanted something different, and that's exactly how we found it. >> so chronologically. >> not chronologically. >> we worried a little it would be too heavy 1960s if we did it chronologically. >> right. >> the point of it was really about i found this today. and i found this today. and i found nothing today but tomorrow we'll find news stories >> right. >> i want the reader to experience that, i want the pages to turn and for people to be surprised. >> so tell us what you found, show us some of the things you found. >> there we go. so this, this is the opening of the book. this is 1971. this is an organization that was based out of new york. it was called negro. i'm sorry. i'm forgetting what the acronym was. >> yes. restoration, growth, opportunity. >> they were doing some good works in the new york area. and they were angry with "the new york times" that they were not covering the progress that they were making in the communities. and they accused "the new york times" at that period of only writing stories about the negative. over crime. >> violence. >> every time -- violence. you know, it some extent, politics. but leaving out the positive contributions that black new yorkers were making. and so the big protests gathered, that's "the new york times," the old "new york times" building on 43rd street. a massive gathering happened out there and as the day went on, unfortunately, things turned rather violent. they lit the trucks on fire. the police came. there were dozens and dozens of arrests. and this was all taking place in front of the office. well, the next day in the paper, there was a big two-column -- i just remember the "times" at that point was the broad sheets, oversized paper, big two-column story, and no photographs. yet, nearly every single one of "the new york times" staff photographers had gone out there that day and they were -- blew my mind. there must have been 40, 50 rolls of film from this event. >> oh, my goodness. >> not a single image made the paper. and it was so unbelievably violent. after this whole thing, dialogue happened between the "times" and this organization. there were some promises to be better at the reporting. and so change, you know, was at least promised at that point. but it was fascinating thing that something so violent happened and the public never got to see it. they got to read about it. the story that was written was very, very detailed about the events of the day. i'll give them that. it was true to the visuals i was looking at. but why not the pictures? >> well, and would you suspect that, you know, did they not want to reinscribe some sort of idea around sort of urban decay and violence and that sort of thing? >> you could have run that first picture, right? if you wanted. sometimes, you know, media outlets were sensitive about -- >> perception, optics. >> yeah, or criticism. >> right. >> there was an interesting debate, dana and i did talk about this, you know, there's always a protest out in the front of "the new york times," when you're in washington, you'll see protests out in front of the "post" or any news organization. does the "times" today run out there and cover it because they're protesting that they don't like what the "times" said about israel or something in the middle east? no. so is that the same thing that happened back then? >> this, the turn of events was so remarkable that you're -- it's striking that they were -- >> i think today if they lit trucks on fire, we would -- we'd cover it. >> i hope. who was the photographer? who was the photographer? >> this, i believe, i think this was artie brouwer. so we're looking at lina horn in her apartment. >> yeah. >> so for those of us who were writers, this was a really interesting project to work on because normally at a newspaper, you know, the photos come after. you know, we go out, we report, and we say, okay, we need this person photographed or this covered, this image or whatever. sometimes it's a working collaboration with a reporter and a photographer at the same time, but often the photographer comes after we've done some legwork. this, the photographs were the main event. this was, you know, the departure. so we had these images and we had to look at them and say, okay, well, what story is there here? and so this was an article that ran about lina horn had a new variety show that was coming out so it was an interview with lina horn. the photo that ran was a tiny head-shot photo of lina horn. >> one column photo of her face looking straight on, no crocked head. >> there was this wonderful know t photo. what is the story to tell here? in the article she mentions it's around christmastime, decorating, telling the reporter it's so nice to be here because it was so hard to find an apartment. i'm thinking it was hard for lina horn to find an apartment? i want to report on that. no, no, i did. i did. and it was, of course, you know, the 1950s, 1960s, and lina horn, one of the most celebrated actresses and singers in the country, was a black woman who struggled to find an apartment in new york city. and the story about how she found this beautiful apartment was a great story. and starts with harry belafonte who also could not find an apartment in new york city. even though he had broken every record, the first artist to break a million albums. anyway -- >> sell. >> that's right. so he got so fed up that he sent his white publicist to this building to sign the paperwork and got the apartment and when he and his wife arrived, the building manager was really mad and told them oh, well, you guys have got to leave. harry got really mad and he bought the building. and he invited -- and he invited his friends in and lina ended up with the apartment. >> with a penthouse. yeah. >> and so it was -- that's what a lot of these stories were like. it was kind of the image but then, you know, the history told us something kind of about, yeah, an important backstory. >> rachel, was your implication to do a deeper dive -- >> we tried, as much as we could, we tried to tell the story behind the photos. so it required -- it wasn't just a lina looks lovely today, though, she does, it was really trying to tell the story of that moment. >> this is such a remarkable photograph in the sense that, you know, she just really looks at ease, you know, she doesn't look as though, you know, she's performing in h any way. she really does feel like i would, you know, at home and running this with her -- with the print, you would have thought would have been the natural choice. >> one-column head shot. they didn't have enough space. it was a long story they wrote. so this is a contact sheet i found, james baldwin was on our list, and we ran frame number 19, i think it's in the second column. the third one down. they ran that as the head shot to accompany the article. when i found this object, i saw this object not as a singular photograph, i saw this as, almost as a movie. >> she brought it to us because we were like, we need baldwin. she said, i think i have many baldwins. so she brought this to us and immediately her idea was, you know, we're going to depict this, the whole thing. and it was -- it just -- if you look, it's just amazing because it's -- it's, you know, you can imagine the photographer just click, click, click. and it is like this mini motion picture of -- >> the many moods of baldwin. >> yes. >> you know? you can sort of -- >> it's just beautiful. >> -- see all of his animated personality, passion, everything throughout this contact sheet. >> i wanted to give the readers of this series an opportunity to see the photos the way the photo editors saw them. why did they choose frame 19? i mean, for me, looking at this right now, i would have gone for the frame down in the bottom where he's got the cigarette? his mouth. >> me, too. >> i think it's so expressive. >> which is frame 19? >> it's the smiling one. >> is it the second -- >> second column, third one down, i believe, that is the one that they ran. >> no, no, no. it is the third one -- >> 19 looks like -- >> first row. i can't see. >> first row. first row. >> yes, first row, second one -- first row, second one down. >> okay. there he is. >> you know, that seems more of a timesian picture. his eyes were shot. never would have done that. he's smoking a cigarette, no way. to me, it says, you know, the photographer had three minutes with him and was bound, determined, he was going to capture james baldwin. i think he captured him in this contact sheet better than any singular frame -- >> yes, yes. >> -- ever would have. >> in doing the research, you know, again, about what story do i tell about this image, i started reading about -- i mean, it was just his face, really, that captured -- i mean, i started doing research and realized he had grown up with this very complicated, you know, relationship with his own face, that, you know, he grew up being told that he was ugly. that he had frog eyes. and that he really internalized that and struggled with that for a lot of his life. and so it's so hard for, you know, for me, you know, you see james baldwin, that's the last thing you think of, but it also just spoke to me about, you know, african-americans and how we, you know, internalize some of these ideas about how we look. >> standards of beauty. >> that's right. >> which he wrote about eloquently in many of his essays and really grappled with. but then here, again, you see all of the beautiful expression in his face and in his life. >> so the next series i wanted to show all of you is a series from -- our first african-american staff photographer hired by "the new york times" in 1964, don hogan charles came on staff and don was a harlem resident. and these images, a much bigger series of them in the book, but these images, don was sent on assignment over a weekend on saturday and sunday to go cover harlem life. this was 1966. harlem was a pretty rough part of town at that point. and the "times" wanted to show a different side of it. and very surprisingly, by monday morning, six photographs were on the front of the metro section at that point. that must have been -- >> a lot. >> -- the biggest photo essay to hit the pages. i can't even imagine. don shot more than 100 rolls of film that weekend of his community. so we're talking 3,600, 3,700 frames. six made the paper. well, there were many, many, many more that are still left behind, but don certainly captured -- >> you could have done a book. >> we could do a book just on this weekend in harlem. and i love this. i love this, no ball playing permitted on the wall there, and the kids are just going for it, anyway. a dominos game on the street. this is a view from one of the local buildings. this is what you saw when you looked out. cathedral st. john the divine in the background. >> so there was this d-- from understanding, historic, real or perceived harlem was this rough, forbidding -- >> rough town. >> the pictures that ran were true to what don shot to be fair to the "times." >> the photo on the front of the book. >> there we go. >> which is just beautiful. >> when there's only six images to run, and, again, this essay even though they did run so many photos took up about only one--thione- one-third of the page. weren't running six-column photographs the way the "times" do today. they were running in three, four-inch spaces. the editors were going for tighter photographs, things that would look good at three to four inches. you go back to this, that would have looked like mud in the paper at the time which is understandable why they left it which is so beautiful now, and for a book. we're going a little too far. >> these remind me of i think somethi something i read in the book i believe sarah lewis mentions as sort of a reclamation. that's what this feels like in terms of sort of reclaim -- and throughout the text, throughout your book is, you know, as you mentioned, darcy, about sort of the ordinary, how you're already sort of looking at photos of those that we know, but then also those that we're less familiar and it seems like it's a reclamation of sort of these stories of as well as the people behind those stories that is so poignant to the project, initial project, and maybe this book as well. >> i think it is very important for us -- for me, especially, as the photo editor, to put the voice of the photographers into this. i really wanted to see what i would now edit to be their best work. i wanted that to be the edit of the day. because we edit very differently now. we edit not for space and not so much to match visual to text perfectly, but we now edit to tell a secondary story that can run parallel to the words that the writers are writing. >> and now, does this -- is this going to be the same for something that's running online, you know, that only lives online, and not in print as well? >> that's a very, very good question, because we often do edit very, very differently, and there was an example that the "times" did in the newspaper just last week, now, i'm no longer a staff picture editor there, but they had a cover of harvey weinstein, it was one image and then online, they ran a very different image. and it's because how the images would be perceived. they come out very differently. yes, we do edit to that extent still to this day. is it a slide show, who's seeing it? >> how are they seeing it? >> are they looking at it on a mobile device? those kinds of things are affecting the editing these days. >> that's different. still, these questions around choice are still being made. >> absolutely. >> who's in, it, who's not it. >> dmast whthat's what the imag to us. it's a question that we grapple with, that our viewers ask us about the choices we're making, who are we showing, who are we not showing, what are we showing, what are we not showing? you know, when you look at some of these images, and you think about the choices that were made, you know, it -- harlem from don hogan charles' lens is a very different place from the forbidding harlem that we described as -- we, "the new york times," described in the 1960s. so it does make year think about, you know, i think if we're true to ourselves think about, you know, how are we doing it now? where are those blind spots now? >> absolutely. i also am struck just by the series of three photos that you've shown us that, you know, or three or four, that he took 3,600 photographs. >> unbelievable. >> over the course of a weekend. and that what he's capturing, you know, just in this ordinary daily life, i -- a photographer who was not from the community or neighborhood might not have -- may have overlooked some of these. >> absolutely. >> moments. >> and probably just as important, might not have been able to approach. >> oh, i mean, that kind of goes without saying to me. >> don in the book, don got into the community center. don got into the bowling alley. don got into, you know -- he knew the people. >> a lot of these people probably knew him. >> and he probably had been photographed -- i mean, it wasn't a surprise to see him walk with his camera. >> not at all. >> down the street with a camera. just so happened that these might make "the new york times" this weekend. >> he's an incredible talent. so next in the series, this was one of my favorite finds because of the subject. >> seems so timely. was this last week? >> this was actually the same month that the big battle over the confederate flag was happening in south carolina. and that's -- we were so shocked when we saw this. so this is reverend kendall smith, and reverend smith was rather annoyed the confederate flag was still being flown in parts of new york city and in particular i believe it was either part of a display oar or part of a series of flags in city hall so he went down to ci hall with the confederate flag, waved it around, got all mad about it then took the flag outside to city hall park across the street and he lit it on fire. so looking at this picture, there's city hall park. not too many people standing around. what's interesting is this was about, i don't know, two, three, maybe four weeks after the big protest in central park, the anti-vietnam war protests, where there were hundreds of thousands of white college students burning the american flag. well, kendall smith was arrested for inciting riot. not much of a riot going on there. and what's even more fascinating, and i don't have any arrest records from the previous event in central park, but i can't recall reading the paper and seeing hundreds of white college students being arrested for burning the flag. the american flag. so he was arrested, thrown in the clink, and the next day the "times" had a big article about it, it was, again, two columns down the metro section. but no photos. not a single photo. they continued to write stories about this legal case. never, ever publishing these photos showing that there was never a riot. in fact, the texts of the articles was very, very detailed saying it was a small crowd of reporters and a photographer or two. i think the writer at one point got funny and said something about pigeons in the park. but clearly -- >> do you recall what the headline -- >> i don't remember what the headline -- >> did the headline say riot or some kind of -- >> no, it was a pretty straightforward -- they used to write really very straightforward, somewhat dry, informative, headlines. but the text was clear in describing the scene very well. but never was a picture published. he eventually got off on a technicality that others weren't arrested for doing the same thing. then it wasn't, in fact, illegal, to burn a flag at that point, and he was -- he was acquitted. >> and now is this his pastorial cloak. >> he took a sheet from a nearby hotel. i don't know if he swiped it or paid for it. the details were not given, but he wore is to emulate a ku klux klan robe and make a point. >> so it's a performance piece in a way. >> it's a performance -- >> he was arrested for inciting a riot. >> inciting riot, yes. and the pictures were so clear, the photographer had moved the camera around. i think at one point i saw a picture of -- i wonder if the "times" had put this image in the paper the next day, would the case have gone away that afternoon. hard to say. >> and your theory around sort of editorial choices of size and space, how does that sort of fit into -- >> it's a mystery. >> okay. >> they had a two-column space. >> right. >> it wasn't as if they had no space in the paper for the article. the page was filled with ads on the other side so they were never going to can an ad. >> clearly. right. right. >> understandably. but why would they not put anything -- >> to go along with this. okay. >> it doesn't make any sense, does it? >> no, it doesn't. >> maybe it wasn't a big enough deal. maybe -- it would have been some sort of bar that needed to be at a certain level for a picture to accompany a story. >> maybe they needed a riot. >> maybe. >> and it's interesting because i'm thinking now what i really do recall were how many pictures the "times" had of the central park issue. >> exactly. i mean, these -- i mean, on one hand, there are these, you know, sort of benign thoughts of, like, you know, this was just a factual kind of not enough space to edit, the photo choice wasn't there. but then these other sort of slippery slopes that kind of -- you know, that make us sort of beg the question about sort of what other subtext -- what subtext was taking place, what's happening whereby we can write two pages about this situation and we can sort of fan the flames, if you will, of, you know, this being this horrible sort of anti, what is, it anti-american? it's not even an american flag. it's a confederate flag. >> it's new york. >> it's not even the south. it's new york. >> well, i mean, you know, some argue up south. so there's that. but, okay. and so let me -- i want to pause. the way in which we're seeing these wonderful images in this range of sortstories, is that the same we will expect from the book -- >> yes. >> -- in terms of -- >> a little bit all over the place. >> there's a throughline as well which makes me think about the question of, you know, when you're dealing with so many years, how did you determine whether or not these had been published? how did you figure out that process? >> so with each image that we found, there were three ways in which we could search "the new york times" archives. there's something called times machine, subscribers have the ability to go in and look through old actual physical copies of the paper as they were published. there's something called -- there's two other ways internally to go look through "times" past which is an internal search engine then another internal search engine. because it's so good, i did a google soernearch on the names well. because if you googled a name and "new york times," you can see if the articles and names appear together. finally about maybe six weeks or so before i handed the contents over to the publisher, we -- i literally started with the earliest picture in the book in the 1940s and clicked on every single page of "the new york times" just to make sure. i was panicking. i was like, oh, i hope nothing was published. what if i find they're public d published? i'm going to be ruined. i panicked about it. i have to look at every single page of "the new york times." it is important to know, there is a section in the book that does address this, proquest and all of the "times"times" machiny copies from the libraries as well, any copies of "the new york times," it's only the last edition. it there's a very, very remote possibility an image could have appeared in a first edition paper but there's no record of it, no electronic record of it. we did address that sort of challenge in the book and figured we would proceed, anyway, with them unseen, unpublished because there would be no way for anybody in this audience to ever see it. it's not fair then to not show it. one other way of checking it, if a name was famous, this is medgar evers. we can go into medgar's clipping files in our library and clipped from our own first and second editions. we would have clipped medgar evers. i did search for the famous names in those clippings. >> in the clippings. >> it to mato make sure. yaerngs. yeah. the hardest part of the book was the vetting of the content, not the finding of the content. >> now, you know, a photograph can tell you as much on the front as it can on the back. i think in the blog you all sort of used the back of the image as well. how much of that was critical in terms of helping you with your research -- >> it was critical. >> -- or, you know, useful in determining a selection? >> i mean, this is a good example, this photograph which we believe is the only photograph that "the new york times" took of medgar evers came from the lens of a reporter, claude sitton, the civil rights correspondent, who spent a lot of time with medgar evers and others. and so he -- his notes are a lot of what i relied on to tell the stories. and he was writing notes on the back of these images and -- >> miniographed sheets that would get -- >> they were really conversations in a way with his editor. you know, telling him, you know, i saw this guy and here's what, where i was, and this is what this person is. some of them, he did have photos that appeared in "the new york times," but, you know, he was -- he was a writer. and, but he talked, too, about, you know, issues about, you know, light and shadow and, oh, i wish, you know, you know, we could get -- there had been better light. but it was really remarkable to see, you know, his notes and it gives you some insight into kind of what was going on. both in new york and out in the field. >>? and did his note recommend that they actually run this? because this is an amazing photograph. >> i didn't see anything at least in this series where he said run this. >> he a poll japologized to his. >> one thing to note, claude never intended for any of his -- some of them did run. many of them didn't 37 he used this photographs as reporting notes. he was out on the field. he'd go and use his camera, get his film developed, sit back down and write his stories from the contact sheets and using the contact sheets describing in great detail what the scene looked like, what people wore. >> in some instances, some of these photos you could see where the story that was connected to them, but he was writing ane ii white nationalists, white citizens councils, for instance. we never could find a story that was connected to. kind of politics, white supremacy basically. he took these photos but there wasn't a story we could actually find. >> again, i believe so much of that was because he just wanted to have a record of it so he can go off and describe it in detail later in other elements. >> they were also talking about, you know, snailmail. i mean, the process, some of these things may not have made it to the photo editor and to the new york desk in time for the image, if you will, in terms of accompanying a story. >> oh, here's a very good example of that. this is merley evers at medgar's funeral and "the new york times" had its staff photographer, george james, based in d.c. george was primarily a shooter for the magazine at that time. he did some work for the newspaper but most of his photos wound up in the magazine publication. george was at that funeral. he was at the casket. he had, i don't know, 30, 40 rolls of film from this event and one more spectacular picture after the other, and i can also tell from the film that george wasn't penned into a singular spot the way many photographers are now. george had freedom to roam. he shot -- there's another photo in the book that shows the crowd. he walked that room. the next day the "times" ran a beautiful photograph but it was from the "associated press." it was a broad, big image, big, broad image, that showed the funeral procession and enormity of the procession. it was a lovely picture. pr >> it's a well-nobody known picture. >> why would they choose an "ap photo" from the staff pictures? "ap" was stuck in the back, we were up front. was george doing this for a magazine feature that never ran? that's the possibility. was it the film never got to new york in time? they had to fedex it -- not fedex -- fax it back to new york. why -- why did it not get there in time? why was it not in the paper? >> and this is -- so this is your opportunity, darcy, as contributing photo editor with the "times," the hindsight being 20/20, they didn't run it then, but i'm running it now. >> i feel so much for the photographers. i said in the book, in the acknowledgements, it's like this book is really for them. they did all of this work and sophso few of the amazing images were shown not just in this category but category across the boards. this is a tribute to the great work they did. >> i do think this idea now that is kind of in terms of image is text as well, that's another way of reading into and sort of diving deeper into the ways in which we understand things. it seems like text was king. it was all about the text. >> text is king. >> versus this kind of relation -- relationship between the way in which someone can understand a story and sort of the complexities of a story. fascinating. >> wonderful stuff. i love this picture. dizzy. so, dizzy was at a local school. he was working with the mary lou williams jazz foundation at that point, and this school was a recipient of some of the funding. he came up to jam with kids, and the next day "the new york times" had a nice article, it was a lovely article, and a photograph of a small one or two-inch picture of dizzy standing there holding his horn staring at the camera. i looked, i saw this picture, i was so mad as a photo editor, how could you not run this gorgeous picture of him? i understand it. he has his eyes closed. they never would have done that. you wouldn't show a picture of somebody with their eyes closed, right? it was too big. you couldn't one this photograph -- >> even if you -- >> the version that they ran was a somewhat cropped moment of this that was just tied in on him, i guess either before or after he'd picked up his horn, and the photographer just got him look bing straight on and holding that horn and left this one. i think it's a shame. and, again, it was space restraint. it was space restraint. >> this -- >> great, great series of photos in the book, sam falk, photographer, went to detroit, i guess about a week or so after the '67 riots. there was a roll of film. sam shot 40, 50 rolls of film. there was a roll of film in the sack of negatives that was marked, destroy. of course, that's the one i went right for. so i pulled it out and i saw the whole roll was double exposed and i was so excited. one of these has to work. and i found this one. so this is an incredible story when you see what's happening and even better that it was a -- big mistake that was meant to be thrown out. the family in this photograph was left homeless by the riots. we tried to locate the mom. she had a very common name. we couldn't find her. but she and her children were left after their home was burnt down. in the background you see the bamboo show bar which in the 1950s was the hottest nightclub in detroit for the jazz age. john coltrain played there. all these big, big names. you're seeing this superimposed image of detroit at the time of its best and its worst. this broke my heart. i also think it's probably my most favorite photo. i think it's the most beautiful photo in the book. the car, too, having the car in there as a symbol of detroit. it there's so much happening in that picture. to me, it's a work of hard. it's the kind of thing i would frame and put on my wall. somebody wanted to throw this out. >> also, not even worse, but it's sort of, like, you have the children there, the promise of tomorrow, it's the ways in which what the uprisings were about, who they -- who, what it embodied. there's so much that this photograph can tell us. >> i hope that this book, i hope one of these children or even the mom comes forward and i identifies who they are and tells us the story today. >> have you had any sort of stories like that? >> yes. we have. >> one of the things we really wanted to do when this project was launched was for it to be an interactive experience. we really didn't want to just show photographs. we wanted -- we wanted people to connect to them, and to tell us their stories, too. though this image is not one where we thought, at least initially, that this would happen, this is an image of a school in princeton, new jersey, that had been recently integrated, and we presented the photo. and readers said, okay, nice photo. what happeneded to the kids? so we were like, well, we don't know. >> we went to facebook. >> what happened to the kids? >> so we asked readers online and on social media, does anyone know who these children are? and where they are now? >> well, one came forward and boy did she have a story to tell. >> someone had been posting about these photos, and shared them on, you know, these were folks who'd gone to the story, and shared it on facebook. someone said, evelyn, isn't that you? she was like, oh, my gosh. she wrote, you know, this is me. >> did she remember that day when the photograph -- >> she remembered that experience, you know, of being so excited and she talked about being, growing up in a part of princeton which was -- people she said at the time would have described as the ghetto, but she said it was a goldenghetto. it was a place where, you know, teachers, all kinds of working people, lived. and she said it was just such a wonderful -- it was a porch community. and so it was a wonderful place to grow up. and she remembered she remember going to an integrated school for the first time and what that was like. and she just remembered, she talked about how that there were challenged in it. you know. about, you know, for a while kids were just kids and then things changed as they got a little older. but she talked about just the influence of, she became an educator herself and she talked about the influence of the educators in her life and about the excitement and the joy in learning. and that's what she recognized in that first photo. >> what a fantastic story. >> it was. we were so excited. >> just like a -- you know, if anybody has recognized any of the people in these, please let us know. >> let us know. we want to hear their stories. speaking of someone's stories, this picture, the man in the dark coat, the first african-american man to win a pulitzer. he won for the photographer of coretta scott king at the funeral, with her daughter on her lap, at her son's funeral. and with her is her son, greg. greg happened to be touring colleges. i found a sack of negatives. it talked about diversity on college campuses. i looked through the film p. i didn't see anything of interest. but i came across a note stuck in the sack to the photo editor, john dugan, at the time, and said, hey, you won't believe, i ran into the minetta at the shoot today and this was a few weeks before mineta was given the pulitzer. we wanted to include minetta this the round but we couldn't find him. everything was from eboy magazine or an ap photo and we couldn't find anything unique to include in the first round of projects. i wanted to include it because for me this is the example of the enormity of the collection at the time. i mentioned there are 10 million prints. they think there is somewhere between 400 million, 500 million negatives. they just don't know. there is no count that they've ever been able to do because the collection is so enormous. it is arranged in such a way that a sack can contain 36 frames or can contain 3600 frames or more. it is impossible for them at this point to get a count. but they think hundreds of millions of photographs. >> what i also love about this, as you mentioned, he is, you know, minetta is with his son on a college tour. when these kind of touch points and flash points around african-american history are told, there are these kind of, you know, stock stories. either it's going to be harlem and the forbidding city. riots. going to be destruction. going to be the, you know, the bomb that's homeless. but these kind of everyday moments, a tender father/son walking across the college campus occasion is just as, you know, sort of relevant to the african-american story as the other sort of marks. and i think that the sort of, i guess, ordinariness of this photograph kind of really resonates in that way as well p. >> one of my favorite photos is a photo we found of kim clark, the sociologist who, you know, is pivotal in, you know, the brown v board of ed decision, his research. and that overturned segregated schools. and it was just him outside, he is smoking a pipe. and his -- his westchester suburb. and his family was around him. it was a predominantly white suburb and it was just him at home and just, just such a great image. and it was also an opportunity to think about, well, how did this guy who pioneered this research on the, you know, harmful effects of segregation live out his life. it was interesting and complicated. >> and i agree and echo that in the thought of, you know, this is a photographer who knew -- >> right. >> and you can feel that that access you were saying even with the evers photograph, that there was this sort of ability to take these pictures and capture these moments and sort of that unfettered access that sometimes now as we get sort of, you know, there are so many layers that photographers have to go through to get pictures taken. >> i know we have short of time, and -- >> i do want to get to the last one in here. we will speak quickly of this. this is another -- >> talk about access. >> yes. the segue. this is the interior of malcom x's home right after it was fire bombed. don got into the house because he was friends with the family. the times the next day ran the photo that showed malcom fleeing the home. and it's a wonderful picture. don't get me wrong. a stunning picture. with fear on x's face and it is wonderful. but don had access inside this house. and the times never ran the pictures the next day. he was, i think, the only photographer. i haven't seen other pictures from inside the home. and to me, why didn't they run this? i still come back to maybe the inability to make that photograph clear in news print. i think news print was 65-line screen dot. the quality wasn't particularly good. this is a very dark image. very hard to see. was that the reason these images got left behind? >> but, you know, sort of another reading of that would have been, if you could have shown two, but this is what he is responding to. >> so powerful. >> this is so powerful. that is the table that your family eats on. everyone in america and all over the world sits at, you know, can relate to that. you know, someone might have in their own imagination an understanding of what they felt or who malcom x was and his beliefs and how that may have crow ated a distance. but an interior shadow of a living room that's bombed out would resonate, i would think, with anybody. it is an interesting conversation. >> his wife in the kitchen, why wouldn't they run that? maybe the back of the head. >> back of the heads, i would say. >> there are standards to what pictures today look like too for the times. it is a wonderful picture. finally, to this one. this is one of the most hysterical stories that we actually did in this whole book. this is cummings. cummings claimed to have been the second african-american man to ever run for president. we didn't put that in the book because we couldn't confirm it. and he was also, there is something funny. he was a little too young to actually run for president. however, he was very -- >> maybe officially. >> he put his name in the hat and got rejected. but grady was an interesting fellow. he ran a newspaper. and he was written about many times in the new york times. this being this up and coming politician who is supposed to be this dynamo. we were trying to come up with words for this thing a enwe just didn't have enough information. let's go back and resear thch guy. turns out that we discover that mr. cummings faked his death. and he faked his death in the new york times. he actually rood wichked the company into running his obit. he did it because he was in trouble with the black panthers company into running his obit. he did it because he was in trouble with the black panthers company into running his obit. he did it because he was in trouble with the black panthers company into running his obit. he did it because he was in trouble with the black pantherse company into running his obit. he did it because he was in trouble with the black panthers the company into running his obit. he did it because he was in trouble with the black panthers. he did it because he was in trouble with the black panthers. he did it because he was in trouble with the black panthers. he disappeared and then reappeared. he invited the "new york times" and amsterdam news. he said he faked it, it was all a hoax. the "new york times" didn't show up and cover it. it turns out after this book closed, and this is something i can only tell people in person. after the book closed we had run a quick article about this in the times. and i got a call from an 80-year-old something former timesman. retired living in london who remembered. and i have it on here in this story. i will never remember these words. but he called up, got arthur, in the executive editor, on the phone and said, it was all fake. i faked the whole thing. and gelb came flailing down to the newsroom in clinton knolls who was then politics editor at the time and said i got this call from a guy named cummings who says he faked the whole thing. he called to say he faked his obituary and he was very much alive. arthur again, said, concentrating on the story, again, still concentrating on the story that he was writing, clay replied, don't believe a word he says. can't be trusted. and the times left it at that. they never ran the correction. >> never did. >> and in fact until this ran, we ran this short piece on it in february, we corrected it how many years later? >> we corrected it 48 years after the fact. when damian and i discovered this whole thing, we went running to the standard editor. we had the oldest correction ever. we were so skiesed. and really the standards editors came around think willing, what should we do? run a correction? >> way to properly correct this is to correct it with the story rather than one an official new york times correction. yes. turns out he died and we did call up his death certificate. it was a fascinating discovery. and i talked to the iditieditort it and he is the second known case of a faked obituary. i hope to discover more. >> thank you, ladies. this is fantastic. [ applause ] >> i wanted to leave room for a few questions if anyone has questions. >> thank you for a fascinating foet pro grapro gramgram. as you were talking, and i'm a retired finance executive, i was thinking about all those rolls of films. i remember buying rolls of film years ago and hope i had enough money. you talk about someone shooting 100 rolls in a weekend and that's got to be $2,000. >> all the advertisers. you know, i don't know. i came to the times in the digital age. but imagine, the paper was stacked with ads and there was plenty of money. i also imagine companies got discounts. they didn't pay what you would pay for a roll of film. they would buy in bulk. >> that begs kwet for me in terms of the photographers having to turn in all of this material. did you all come across controverkroernds fr correspondence, they knew they were work for hire, but did they ever want some of those photographs?were work for hire,y ever want some of those photographs? have you come across anywhere they were published in other monographs by the photographer? >> not necessarily. there was a period where the company was kuling a lot of the stuff for space. and the photographers were extremely worried about that. many of them stole their film. their important film. but over years, working on the project like this, and in terms of restoration and presservatio of photos, they have given them back. photographers said i have about 800 rolls of film that belong to you. do you want them back? so it was a good thing that it preserved them. they protected it. >> that's fantastic. >> there was also something about they were stored in near roads and traffic and there was a print of marilyn monroe, and hey, i'll take that. >> i'm a former librarian and photo librarian of the times. i'm always concerned about storage. that stuff is very fragile. so what condition -- >> it is in excellent condition. it is in a sub basement which never changes temperatures. it is an climate-controlled room, per se. there are two sets, prints and negatives and they are stored in two different spaces. actually negatives are in three different spaces because the more modern collection is on a different floor. but it is locked behind a keyed room and well taken care of by curators. it is not in any sort of, you know, white-sleeved container. but what's so fascinating is it is packed in so tight and rarely touched that we think that's how preserved. there was a flood about a year ago, leak in the building and there happened to be so many stacks on top and when the water came in, water went around. and it was packed in so tight it almost nothing got damaged. what did get wet, we washed it, hung it to dry, pressed it back in and stuck it back in again. very fortunate. >> when i worked there, there was so much destroyed. >> i think the older till many deteriorated long ago.ftill man deteriorated long ago.itill many deteriorated long ago.ltill many deteriorated long ago.mtil many deteriorated long ago.ill many deteriorated long ago.ll my deteriorated long ago. many deteriorated long ago. many deteriorated long ago.many deteriorated long ago.any deteriorated long ago.ny deteriorated long ago.y deteriorated long ago. deteriorated long ago. >> once you saw and selected the photos, did it change your perception of the preconceived notions of what you would find or anything about african-american history? or anything about -- in other words, internalizing in what you saw. did it alter your perception? >> absolutely. absolutely. no doubt. i had no idea what to really expect. and i didn't expect such a broad history. i only knew what i knew. i knew of rosa parks. the pictures of rosa parks. i didn't know shirley went out and was a census taker. i didn't know -- and i didn't know why she did it. that's another fascinating part. when you look at the pictures and understand why people did what they did. that was the biggest discovery for me. absolutely. >> same question for you. >> i think it is interesting to think about how we as journalists did these, i think that's interesting to me. and also many discoveries for me as well, just in terms of, you know, doing research and finding out more about people who i knew. what is interesting institution play in making people visible or not.titution and the role we ply in making people visible or not. that's the thing that really stuck with me. >> self reflection for times and keeping things on scene, seems like there are two dimensions i would like to hear your thoughts about. one is just seeing the photos of the widow at funeral, there is a huge interest for historians that is deeper than what we have been able to capture in one book. same with malcom x. you would expect historians would want to absorb the visual imagery that's been hidden in a different kind of way than you've been able to do. so the question is, are people now going to come toward you saying we want to gain access to the archives a little bit more quickly. the other big question is how many other unseen histories, of you know, just waiting to be drawn upon. what's your next big proj snekt. >> you know what is interesting, this project which was such a huge success, of course, immediately spawned other projects. and darcy can tell you about some of the work she did and is still being done. >> unfortunately newspapers and regional newspapers and their archives in terms of just going back into communities, it is such an important resource. i'm curious, i've done a bunch of historical resource outside of this, and corporate archivesn't necessarily just open to the public. so i don't know what the response would be if a historian came knocking. i'm not sure. >> they did come knocking. there is an archivity there, jeff roth. he responds to calls individually.sty there, jeff roth. he responds to calls individually.ty there, jeff roth. he responds to calls individually.y there, jeff roth. he responds to calls individually. there, jeff roth. he responds to calls individually. the one thing that i think is important with this project and projects that followed is that for a long time organizations would come into the "new york times" and offered to buy the collection. we will give you x amount of money for it and we will digitize it for pup don't worry about it.ypup don't worry about it.oupup don't worry about it..pup don't worry about it.pup don't worrud. thankfully the times never got rid of their collection. they held on to it and i think their understanding is the value in its use. by creating books like this. by using it for their own journalism. by using it for future stories. and i think they see that it will now pay off. holding on to it. it is enormous. it is not free keeping it in the basement. it is not free to pay employees to do work with it. i think utilization of this collection is the best possible thick that could happen to it. >> you think i saw a question from this young lady. >> how did he get out that he was dead? >> good question. in case you haven't guessed, this is my daughter, sydney. she has been a big help in this book, as i know your children have been, too. he wrote what they call a press release. and he sent it to the writers at the times. and he convinced them -- >> fake news. >> yes. early fake news. and the writers believed it. why would someone lie about their death? that's exactly how that happened. that's a good question. >> yes. >> thank you. i think you all have done a remarkable job here. i want to give you another round of applause. and remind everyone that this phenomenal book that is just a fraction of the archives and discovery. and it sounds like there are multiple opportunities for more to be discovered and uncovered. so thank you so much. thank you. thank you. thank you, all. tonight on the communicators. we're at bell labs in murry hill, new jersey where they conduct advanced communication research. >> on the forefront is 5g communication. >> which is? >> 5g is an interesting thing. in a hundred years, the first wireless communication, this changed our species and what we do. this is what all wireless communication is. wifi. cell phone. all we want do is go to a new era of communication. that era of communication is a directed beam communication. as opposed to broadcasting. we want to target a beam at individuals and jump within. the reason we want to do this is because our thirst for data is never ending. we want more and more. we have saturated our spectrum. so we have to go to a higher frequencies. there are many other challenges. one challenge is that the signal loss through the air is too much. so if i want to talk to you i have to direct my beam directly at you and send you a chunk of data and get data to you and then move to the next person. this is a completely changing paradigm in communication. with that, huge set of challenges. and the entire wireless industries are excited about this. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. > . military pilots were known as cu as tuskegee airman. up next, the author of together as one legacy of james shipley. kansas city public library hosted this event. it is just over 50 minutes. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the kansas city public library. we're so happy you're here tonight. i want to let you know that ni

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