Photography Unit Do pictures reveal important truths?

Dead on the Beach 1943 When LIFE ran this haunting photograph, the magazine felt compelled to ask, “Why print this picture of three American boys dead upon an alien shore?” Among the reasons: “words are never enough... words do not exist to make us see, or know, or feel what it is like, what actually happens.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt was convinced that Americans had grown too complacent about the war, so he lifted the ban on images depicting U.S. casualties. Strock’s picture and others that followed in LIFE and elsewhere had the desired effect. The public, shocked by combat’s grim realities, was instilled with yet greater resolve to win the war.

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executing a Viet Cong Prisoner in Saigon This picture was shot by Eddie Adams in 1968, and he won the Pulitzer prize. The picture shows Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam's national police chief executing a prisoner who was said to be a Viet Cong captain. The picture flashed around the world and quickly became a symbol of the Vietnam War’s brutality. This powerful photograph turned public opinion against the war.

Images from the Vietnam War Phan Thị Kim Phúc is running naked on the street after being severely burned on her back by a U.S.- coordinated napalm attack. She was in a group of civilians fleeing to safety. A pilot mistook the group as a threat and diverted to attack it. Associated Press photographer Nick Út earned a Pulitzer Prize for the photograph. The image of her running naked amidst the chaotic background became one of the most remembered images of the Vietnam War. After taking the photograph, Út promptly took Kim Phúc and the other children to a hospital in Saigon where it was determined that her burns were so severe that she would not survive. However, after a 14 month hospital stay and 17 surgical procedures, she returned home. Út continued to visit until he was evacuated during the fall of Saigon, 3 years after the picture was taken.

Richard Nixon doubted the veracity of the photograph, musing whether it may have been "fixed." Út commented, "Even though it has become one of the most memorable images of the twentieth century, President Nixon once doubted the authenticity of my photograph when he saw it in the papers on 12 June The picture for me and unquestionably for many others could not have been more real. The photo was as authentic as the Vietnam war itself. The horror of the Vietnam war recorded by me did not have to be fixed. That terrified little girl is still alive today and has become an eloquent testimony to the authenticity of that photo. That moment thirty years ago will be one Kim Phúc and I will never forget. It has ultimately changed both our lives."

Integration It was the fourth school year since segregation had been outlawed by the Supreme Court. Things were not going well, and some southerners accused the national press of distorting matters. This picture, however, gave irrefutable testimony, as Elizabeth Eckford strides through a gauntlet of white students, including Hazel Bryant (mouth open the widest), on her way to Little Rock’s Central High.

Birmingham 1963 For years, Birmingham, Ala., was considered “the South’s toughest city,” home to a large black population and a dominant class of whites that met in frequent, open hostility. The civil rights movement was pivotal in Birmingham as nonviolent demonstrators led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. repeatedly faced jail, dogs and high-velocity hoses in their tireless quest to topple segregation. This picture of people being pummeled by a liquid battering ram rallied support for the plight of the blacks.

Lynching 1930 A mob of 10,000 whites took sledgehammers to the county jailhouse doors to get at these two young blacks accused of raping a white girl. There were nearly 5,000 lynchings documented between Reconstruction & the late 1960s. Some lynching photos were made into postcards designed to boost white supremacy, but the tortured bodies and grotesquely happy crowds ended up revolting as many as they scared. Today the images remind us that we have not come as far from barbarity as we’d like to think.

The Kent State Massacre The news that Richard Nixon was sending troops to Cambodia caused a chain of protests in U.S. colleges. At Kent State the protest seemed more violent, some students even throwing rocks. In consequence, The Ohio National Guard was called to calm things down, but the events got out of hand and they started shooting. The photo shows 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller who had been shot by the Ohio National Guard moments earlier.

Four students were killed and nine others wounded. Some of the students who were shot were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia. However, other students who were shot were merely walking nearby or observing the protest at a distance. There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of eight million students, and the event further divided the country along political lines.

Tiananmen Square 1989 The Unknown Rebel This famous photo, taken on 5 June 1989 by photographer Jeff Widener, depicts an unknown man trying to stop the advancing tanks. A hunger strike by 3,000 students in Beijing had grown to a protest of more than a million as the injustices of a nation cried for reform. When this young man simply would not move, a hero was born. A second hero emerged as the tank driver refused to crush the man, and instead drove his killing machine around him. This picture showed a billion Chinese that there is hope.

Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thích Quảng Ðức was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon intersection on June 11, He was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Diệm administration. This photo was circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diệm regime. Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photo of the monk's death. Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists.

Nagasaki 1945 Nothing like the mushroom cloud had ever been seen. On August 6 the first atomic bomb killed an estimated 80,000 people in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. There was no quick surrender, and three days later a second bomb exploded 500 meters above the ground in Nagasaki. The blast wind, heat rays reaching several thousand degrees and radiation destroyed anything even remotely nearby, killing or injuring as many as 150,000 at the time, and more later.

Americans -- and everyone -- had heard of the bomb that "leveled" Hiroshima, but what did that mean? When the aerial photography was published, that question was answered. The energy released by the bomb was powerful enough to burn through clothing. The dark portions of the garments this victim wore at the time of the blast were emblazoned on to the flesh as scars, while skin underneath the lighter parts (which absorb less energy) was not damaged as badly.

Breaker Boys1910 In 1908 the National Child Labor Committee was already campaigning to put the nation’s two million young workers back in school when the group hired Lewis Hine. He captured images of children working in mines, mills and on the streets. Here he has photographed “breaker boys,” whose job was to separate coal from slate, in South Pittston, Pa. Once again, pictures swayed the public in a way cold statistics had not, and the country enacted laws banning child labor.

Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire 1911 The Triangle Shirtwaist Company always kept its doors locked to ensure that the young immigrant women stayed stooped over their machines and didn’t steal anything. When a fire broke out on Saturday, March 25, 1911, on the eighth floor of the New York City factory, the locks sealed the workers’ fate. In just 30 minutes, 146 were killed. Witnesses thought the owners were tossing their best fabric out the windows to save it, then realized workers were jumping. The Triangle disaster spurred a national crusade for workplace safety.