Chicago’s trailblazing Black photojournalists are back together through an exhibit of their work

We all look at the world through different lenses, but photojournalists do it in a more literal sense every day.

Photography brought four friends, teachers and trailblazers together at the South Side Community Art Center on a recent Saturday afternoon to talk about their work as Black photojournalists for Chicago’s mainstream newspapers in the 1960s and 1970s.

Those four men taught photography at the South Side center and, in 1973, they created an exhibit for the center titled “Through the Eyes of Blackness.” Fifty years later on Sept. 16, the photojournalists came together to showcase photos from the original exhibit — Chicago Tribune veteran and Pulitzer Prize winner Ovie Carter; Chicago Sun-Times veterans Bob Black and Howard Simmons; and John White, who started with the now-defunct Chicago Daily News and won a Pulitzer with the Sun-Times.

The 1973 exhibit displayed their work without credit, to show the Black experience as a “oneness,” though not a “sameness.” There were black-and-white images of iconic faces in Black culture, and color images of former Secretary of State Jesse White and one of his Jesse White tumblers defying gravity during a parade.

Angela Ford, founder and executive director of the Obsidian Collection, made a community conversation possible with help from the Field Foundation and Chicago Community Trust. The Obsidian Collection is a nonprofit that works to preserve the African American culture and history found in Black newspapers.

Ford’s firm is digitizing its collection so it can be free and searchable around the world through a virtual portal. The collection is connecting generations of the Black diaspora while reclaiming the Black narrative to tell accurate stories of the culture, Ford said. The “Obsidian Stories” podcast features Simmons talking about the exhibit.

“I am inspired by this generation of men who have influenced and helped so many people going forward,” Ford said of the photographers. “I’ve only known them for three years, but every single time I’m in the presence of these gentlemen, I learn something more.”

At the community conversation, the foursome’s camaraderie was evident. The friends hugged, laughed and finished each other’s sentences. Carter referred to the group as “first responders” who also recorded the “first draft of history.” Current photojournalists of color came out to reminisce and say thanks for paving the way.

Simmons said he met Black in a supermarket checkout line when he saw a Leica camera around Black’s neck. Carter said he found his career path after seeing a Bob Black photo in a Sun-Times newspaper on his teacher’s desk.

“The picture just spoke to me,” Carter said. “I don’t even remember exactly what it was, but it was just the tonality of the black-and-white photograph that caught my attention. And I thought, this is something that I would like to do — take pictures like this.”

The photographers shared stories of notable news, including the mass firing of the entire Sun-Times photo department in 2013, the infiltration of hedge funds in the newspaper industry and the emergence of artificial intelligence.

As they described the struggle and trauma involved in doing their work in racist environments, White, Carter, Simmons and Black held court for two hours, answering questions that made history come alive in the community center.

Here are some highlights of that conversation, with questions presented by a panel and by the Tribune. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What was the inspiration for the exhibit “Through the Eyes of Blackness?”

Black: It was Howard’s idea. We had just begun to work at the downtown papers. I was the first one at the Sun-Times and before me. … There was a young person that went into the Daily News, who was the very first Black photographer to work downtown and his name was John Tweedle. He broke the color ban on the photography end, and I followed him a couple of years later to the Sun-Times. And shortly after that, John came to the Daily News and then Ovie came to the Tribune and Howard came to the Sun-Times. We were all contemporaries at the time, Ovie, John and myself. So Howard came up with the idea that we should get together and put together an exhibit.

Q: Once you were in the jobs for these major newspapers, what was it like when you were out there working?

White: The first day of work, the first piece of equipment that I got was a riot helmet. It was exciting because we always felt that we had a commitment to be the eyes for humanity. At the end of the day, we are archivers of history, whether it’s a parade or the president or law enforcement. When I think about my brothers here, what we’ve done, I think about the gift of longevity and what we’ve tried to do is serve, be a servant. ... We have fun, laugh and joke, but underneath, there’s a seriousness about what we do.

Q: What was it like on a day-to-day basis to have to deal with the kind of segregation that Chicago is known for?

White: It was a challenge every freaking day. We know that one frame, one third of a second, one click makes a difference. We were representing our people, people’s humanity. I’ve cried a lot more than I’ve laughed. ... I live by three F words. These are three words that keep all of us, in my opinion: faith, focus and fight. To be faithful to your purpose in life. We’re faithful to what we do. We stay precision-focused on what we are doing because we’re not going to get to do it forever. You don’t know what the next day holds, the next moment holds. And then keep in the fight and just do it.

Black: They sent me out to this home and when I got there, they weren’t home. I went back and they were coming in and this family had not known about the loss of their loved one. Usually when we go, they already know and they’ve gotten over the initial shock of everything and it’s a little easier. But this time, they didn’t know anything. And I was the bearer of bad news. My heart just sunk when I realized what had happened. So I can understand what it’s like when a police officer or somebody official has to do that. That is the hardest thing possibly ever imagined.

Simmons: I was covering an assignment where a tavern had been robbed and the brothers who owned the tavern had been killed. The detectives were out front; it’s a crime scene. I’m there with my camera. And I see a young lady approaching the scene and she’s carrying a baby. You can see she was nervous trying to figure out what was going on. I hear one of the detectives shout, “Grab the baby! Grab the baby!” She just falls out onto the ground. It was her father and uncle’s tavern.

You have to do your job; you can respond, but you can’t get involved with it … but you oftentimes do. Going back to the paper, developing your film, you have time to think about it. ...

There are other (incidents) where I thought I was down South. There were people outside this school; they were so upset because Black kids were coming to their school. I’m walking out in the street with my camera, because they’re on the sidewalk, and somebody shouted the N-word. I shouted back at them and that upset them because it kind of disarmed them with that. The police threatened to arrest me. There were all sorts of situations that you encounter and no matter what happens, you have to stay focused on taking your photographs.

Carter: Say what you will about affirmative action … it was responsible for all of us being in the positions we were in. Getting the news out, the headlines, hold the press … it’s about speed. There have been a few times when I had to travel a little faster to get back to the paper because they were holding a space for a picture that I made. Pretty exciting.

People don’t know it but they think that journalism, photojournalism, is a glamorous profession. And it is, but you really do have to work hard at it. We didn’t have time to prepare for a lot of things; just get up and go right now. And it could be anywhere. There have been times when I was coming to work, and I didn’t come back home for a week. In the end, I can say that I attempted to make photographs that are aesthetically pleasing and tell a story. I strove to make images that are technically sound, infused with my soul and my values.

Q: People would assume that because you were the first African Americans to be hired that you would be sent only to cover African Americans. Talk about that.

Black: In my case, they needed somebody to get in there and cover those riots because we had access. We could get in and nobody was paying us any attention. I would get assignments that would send me into places that I knew were not going to be friendly to me.

One time the paper was doing a series of stories about live entertainment in neighborhood pubs. One night they were going to send me to a place on the Far Southwest Side. I knew that wasn’t a place for me to go and it was at night, because that’s when the entertainment was taking place. I knew I had to find a way to get in there without having to cause a whole lot of riff. So I told the guy on the news desk to call the pub to tell them that I’m coming. I had a brother who worked for the Chicago Fire Department and he got me one of the work coats that they usually wear at a fire so I wouldn’t mess up my regular clothes when I covered a fire since I had a habit of wanting to get in close.

What I did do, I took more than one camera with me, put both cameras around my neck and put on that firefighter’s coat and when I got to the place, the minute I came through the door, you could hear a pin drop. I knew all eyes were on me. From the back, by the bar, I heard a voice say, “Sun-Times?” I said yeah. He said, “Come on in.” And folks went right back to what they were doing. Didn’t pay me a bit of difference. I got in there, got my pictures, and I got out with no problem because I knew how to do that. The whole idea was to disarm them, throw them off balance.

White: I’ve been shot at, I’ve been attacked. I’ve been in executive meetings one hour, and three hours later, I’m wearing a bulletproof vest. You have to endure. You’re wearing different cameras on your neck and body. And people look at an image and they have no idea all the ingredients that go into it. First you have to get there. … You have to get back and process film on deadline and print it while they’re wet to make the deadline. All these ingredients go into print. I work for history, for time.

Q: With a front seat to history, how did you protect your mental health?

Simmons: Just being in the company of such wonderful photographers. I tell people these guys keep me humble.

White: Brotherly love. We have a oneness. Our techniques are different styles ... but there’s a oneness because we have the same soul, heart and spirit and we’re about the same thing and that flies above the news; nothing replaces that.

Black: In terms of mental health, I went through some changes there internally. ... I didn’t have so much trouble on the street, including those communities not so friendly to Black folks. I was able to get in and do what I had to do. I never once told the desk, “I can’t go there.” But internally I had some stumbling blocks. But I also saw some stumbling blocks removed. It was my faith that kept me together. If it had not been for that, I probably would have been crazy.

drockett@chicagotribune.com