Day: January 13, 2018

“. . . to arouse the dozing conscience of our nation.”

This photograph by Herald-Sun staff photographer Jim Thornton appeared on the front page of the 17 February 1960 issue of The Durham Morning Herald. Pictured here is a scan made from the original negative, shown without cropping.
This photograph by Herald-Sun staff photographer Jim Thornton appeared on the front page of the 17 February 1960 issue of The Durham Morning Herald. Pictured here is a scan made from the original negative, shown without cropping.

A few days ago on January 9th, The Herald-Sun published a story online titled, “When Martin Luther King Jr. came to Durham.”  The article included a photograph of King and others walking on Durham’s West Main Street on February 16, 1960.  They were on their way to the F. W. Woolworth & Company lunch counter, which the store had kept closed after the February 8th sit-in by North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University) students protesting against segregated seating.  That protest came on the heels of the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in at Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1st.

The North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives is the home of The Herald-Sun negatives.  There are two sets of negatives in the collection that document King’s 1960 trip to Durham: twelve negatives by Jim Thornton of King’s walk to Woolworth’s, and twenty negatives attributed to Harold Moore (based upon a caption in The Durham Sun) that depict two views of sidewalk picketers and twenty-one negatives of King visit to White Rock Baptist Church.

Photographer Jim Thorton's selected negative, which was not published, of Martin Luther King and others as Martin Luther King, Jr. and others walked to Woolworth's.
Photographer Jim Thorton’s selected negative, which was not published, of Martin Luther King and others as Martin Luther King, Jr. and others walked to Woolworth’s.

The above negative by Thornton has a punch-hole beneath the image area, which typically designates the photographer’s or editor’s choice images.  Neither The Durham Morning Herald nor The Durham Sun published that view.  Instead, the latter published a cropped view of the following negative . . . removing the young bystander of history on the far left.

The full frame of Jim Thornton's published photograph of Rev. Douglas Moore, pastor of Asbury Temple Methodist Church; Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; Ralph Abernathy; and Lacy Streeter, North Carolina College student and president of the NCC chapter of the NAACP.
The full frame of Jim Thornton’s published photograph of Rev. Douglas Moore, pastor of Asbury Temple Methodist Church; Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; Ralph Abernathy; and Lacy Streeter, North Carolina College student and president of the NCC chapter of the NAACP.

During the evening, King spoke at a filled-to-capacity White Rock Baptist Church.  King’s speech has been dubbed informally his “Fill Up the Jails” sermon.  As The Durham Sun reported:

‘Let us not fear going to jail if the officials threaten to arrest us for standing up for our rights.’  Negroes must be willing ‘to fill up the jails of the South’ to gain their point. . . . Maybe it will take this willingness to stay in jail to arouse the dozing conscience of our nation.’

Martin Luther King, Jr. during his speech at White Rock Baptist Church on 16 February 1960.
Martin Luther King, Jr. during his speech at White Rock Baptist Church on 16 February 1960.