'The Soiling of Old Glory'

[TOP publishes on M-W-F at some point during the day. I'm still adjusting to the schedule and not doing very well yet. Please excuse our growing pains.]

[Comments have been added]

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Stanley Forman in 1976

We've been talking about a few YouTube videos recently, so I wanted to mention an eight-and-a-half-minute short buried in a larger program. The full 53-minute program is called "Extraordinary Finds 2" and was produced by the PBS program Antiques Roadshow—in it, they follow up on the later disposition of certain objects originally featured on the show. Here, they produced an excellent in-depth piece about an old photograph made in 1976 during the anti-busing race riots in Boston, Massachusetts.

The picture, called "The Soiling of Old Glory," depicts Joseph Rakes, a white male teenager, attacking Theodore Landsmark, a black attorney, using an American flag on a flagpole as a weapon. It was taken by Stanley Forman, the first photographer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography two years in a row. (The other picture he won for is "Fire Escape Collapse," which I used to use in classroom discussions about ethics, to address the common reaction, "Why doesn't the photographer help?") Ted Landsmark, who they interviewed for the segment along with Stanley Forman, is currently Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University.

It's a nicely done little segment and one that most photography aficionados would be very likely to miss, since it's buried in a program about antiques. It starts at 40:30.

UPDATE: Richard Parkin says this link works better for him in the UK.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph by Jason Fulford. Although I would never actually let anyone tell me not to photograph anything, this is a fun book for getting "the lay of the land" as what subjects and treatments are common. There are some nice insights, and it's a pleasant read, although I think it will be more fun if you already know a lot about photography and can relate to the subjects he discusses.

The above is a link to Amazon from TOP. Once you're at Amazon, anything you search and buy will be credited to TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Rene: "I lived in Boston at that time and lived in a racially mixed community. The tension was palpable every day. I remember when that happened and its aftermath. I had just gotten interested in photography a few years before and was stunned by the photo because it so clearly expressed what was going on. At one point, our house was attacked with rocks thrown through the windows because we were known as 'integrationists.' Actually, we were called other things, but that's the polite term. As the great Bill Russell said, 'Boston itself was a flea market of racism. It had all varieties, old and new. The city had corrupt, city hall-crony racists, brick-throwing, send-’em-back-to-Africa racists, and in the university areas phony radical-chic racists.... Other than that, I liked the city.'

"Re: your 10/15/21 post on the Basketball G.O.A.T., the correct answer IMHO is of course Bill Russell. Watch some old clips of the Celtic dynasty of the 1960s and you'll see why."

Jeff1000: "Re 'Please excuse our growing pains.' Didn't you mean 'shrinking pains'? [rimshot]"

Mike replies: I do actually mean shrinking pains. And therein lies a tale...why is it so much easier for human enterprises to grow rather than to shrink? It's not like growth can't kill a business, because it can, but generally growth is welcomed and embraced whereas shrinkage is difficult to cope with, difficult to adjust to, and demoralizing. I wonder why that is. Is it just the imbalance in enthusiasm and hopefulness?

Comments

[Speed]

Mike wrote, " ... most photography aficionados would be very likely to miss, since it's buried in a program about antiques."

Don't be so quick to assume ... some of us are ourselves antiques.

[Richard Parkin]

“Video unavailable” here. I think it’s probably this one on YouTube from a quick search:
https://youtu.be/ogTE4fwnLIA

[No, that's the initial appraisal. Interesting enough on its own, but the really good part is the later followup on the video I linked. --Mike]

[Richard Parkin]

This link works for me (U.K. ). The relevant bit is at 40:30 as in Mike’s link.

https://youtu.be/hNDme0ELqbQ

There seems to be several copies on YouTube but some seem just click bait for an ad and nothing else.

[John Krumm]

A little off topic, but the idea of "shrinking pains" and perhaps growing small more gracefully is interesting. Sometimes when Pentax/Ricoh announces a new product it feels like people are angry that they are managing to stay afloat with such a small, and shrinking, operation.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Within the context of a business (and that's a critical restriction of the discussion), "growing" opens up new opportunities, whereas "shrinking" frequently requires giving up assets you already have. One is the adventure of the new and adding to the team, the other is making the hard choices of who to leave behind and what to stop doing. So it seems obvious to me that growing will be much less scary at the initial step, and much more accepted. (Actually supporting significant growth and moving forward effectively is certainly hard! But it doesn't absolutely require hurtful things the way shrinking does.)

In a volunteer organization, in contrast, growth can be harder. There's more to do and at least to begin with the same set of people to do it. Or in a family, with is a case of a volunteer organization.