LIKE IT IS
The Covert War Against Malcolm X
__________________________
ABOUT THE FAMOUS PHOTO
OF MALCOLM X
By Sandeep S. Atwal
Although it’s a famous photograph, I couldn’t find any high-resolution versions online or any information about the photographer or where it appeared. All online sources I could find credit this photo as appearing in the March 20, 1964 issue of LIFE magazine, but after buying that issue on eBay, I saw a short Malcolm X story, but not the photo. I reached out to a friend, who put out some queries on some photo sites. No luck. I contacted Wayne Taylor who runs the excellent Malcolm X Project at Columbia University, his answer was that “allegedly Malcolm had the photo taken by folks within his organization for publicity purposes not long before his death. Because of constant death threats and the firebombing of his home, Malcolm wanted to put out a photo showing that he was indeed armed and ready to defend himself against future threats. However, I can't say where and when the photo was published.” Several months after he posted the question, my friend finally got a response back to his question on the message boards on photo.net:
“At first I tried, according to the faulty note regarding the origin of the photo on Wikipedia, to search for it in the March 20, 1964 issue of Time. As you can imagine, the effort was of no avail. However, after two hours of intensive search, i finally stumbled upon the answer: The photograph was taken by New York Times photographer, Don Hogan Charles, and was published in the September 1964 issue of Ebony Magazine. I hope this information helps. Moreover, I am hoping that, by providing you with this info, you guys will help correct those wrong information on Wikipedia."
Oddly, the famous picture is in a 1993 reprint of the article in Ebony during the release of Spike Lee's movie...but not in the original 1964 issue. However, a similar picture does appear in the 1964 issue, Googling Don Hogan Charles turned up a blog entry. According to the blog, Malcolm X got Charles the job at the Times, where he became the paper’s first black photographer and "gave Harlem a voice in the paper".