One photojournalist from North Carolina influenced the civil rights struggle in the United States, enjoyed a friendship with President Richard Nixon, was a member of the first African American press delegation on an official U.S. diplomatic trip overseas, and descended from one of the victims of the Wilmington 1898 coup d’etat. Alexander Rivera, Jr. also lit a fire in the imagination of UNCW History Professor Glen Harris, who wrote his biography: Social Justice and Liberation Struggles: The photojournalistic and public relations career of Alexander McAllister Rivera Junior