Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

Courage in the Moment

Posted on February 16, 2012February 16, 2012 by Staff

A Thousand Words
By Jock Lauterer

Had it not been for Jim Wallace, I might not have become a photojournalist. During the summer of 1963, Jim, the senior Daily Tar Heel photographer, picked me, a rank newbie, to serve as his understudy. The next school year, ’63-’64, was a defining moment for the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill, when demonstrators (including the 1k Word guy) picketed and marched for equal public accommodations at local segregated cafes, restaurants and lunch counters. To make this photo, dated Feb. 8, 1964, Jim scampered up the stairs in old Battle-Vance-Pettigrew dorm to get a high oblique view of demonstrators marching up and down Franklin Street in front of the post office. While other shooters took photos of the demonstrations, we wannabes understood that Jim Wallace was THE pre-eminent photojournalist, and his pictorial coverage of the civil rights era in the DTH served as a running visual history book of those tumultuous times. So how fitting that all these years later Wallace has put those searing black-and-white images together in a hardcover book, Courage in the Moment: the Civil Rights Struggle, 1961-1964, just published by Dover and available at local bookstores. And how additionally satisfying that Jim is back in town this week for book-signings and lectures – including a presentation to a photojournalism class taught by his old mentee. Way to go, Chief!

A THOUSAND WORDS
Do you have an important old photo that you value? Email your photo to jock@email.unc.edu and include the story behind the picture. Because every picture tells a story. And its worth? A thousand words.
More “A Thousand Words”

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme