'Harlem, 1968 Assassination of Rev. M.L. King, Jr. Aftermath' - Limited Edition of 20 Photograph

In 1968 when Rev. Dr.. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, I had recently acquired my first camera and was thrilled by the results of shooting my first few photos ever in my lifetime. The results gave me aspirations. This is one of my first photos, taken a month of so after that first camera was purchased. I had no tutelage or education in photography. I have recently learned that this photo was in a group of my earliest photos that in 1968-69, thatwere shown to famed photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, by a mutal friend when I applied for a photogapher job with Associated Press, San francisco. The 'friend' of Cartier-Bresson was on the AP San Francisoc staff as a writer. This reporter, Jimmy White, had toured China with Cartier-Bresson and they were close friend. Cartier-Bressonm was in San Francisco then to oversee an exhibitoin of his lifetime best photos at the famed De Young Museum, San Francisco. I had no idea who this Henry guy was that White sent me to meet just before my first AP shift. I did not take any photos to my meeting with this famed photographer; but unknown to me, our mutual friend had previously shown my early photos, including this one, to HCB. White had taken my early photos from my AP job application and didn't tell me. I had no idea HCB had see my work and thus no idea that it was HCB who solicited the meeting based on the quality of my work. I did not discover these facts until two or three years ago, when someone revealed the secret. I did not take any photos to the meeting. HCB did not hint he'd seen any of my work; the meeting with him was prearranged by his friend, AP newsman and HCB 'China buddy' newsman and China expert, Jimmy White from AP. The two had followed Mao as he chased the Nationalist Chinese from Mainland China. This image never was published; I took off the evening after I took it, for Washington, D.C. then under nightime curfew because of race riots there, as D.C. residents protested the assassination. I took a train late at night from Penn station bound for Washington, D.C., to arrive the following morning. I intended to take photos of the rioters who had taken over the D.C.. Instead I was shot on the train as it pulled in early norning cold into the Trenton, N.J. statoin, across a river from Philadelphia. Two men were fighting, one black and one white. The black man shot the white man and me with one bullet. The shooter had arisen from his seat as we pulled into Trenton railroad station, but did not intend to get off. A merchant seaman, white, mistakenly believing the seat was vacant, layed on that seat, and iin the process unwittingly lay acros a Smith and Wesson revolver in a paper bag left there by the seaman, who had left the seat only temporarily to complain to the conducter about cold in the coach. The white seaman was hit once with me by the same bullet. Later the black seaman returned to shoot the white seaman again. The white seaman twitched when the gun was put to his face and fired, and he suffered a bullet crease on his cheek and a small blown out portion of his right ear top, but the shooter believed he was dead and left the coach a second time. Recovering at a Trenton hospital, I was approached by Trenton Mafia who offered to kill the captured black seaman.while that shooter was in jail, I was horrified and refused to sanction further violence. On the way to the police station in Trenton when I was released from hospital, a cop came to drive me to the police station to take my statement to prosecute the shooter. We drove through a growing riot. 'Duck!' the cop told me as he put on his riot helmet, as store windows were smashing around us in a police car, driving through the riot's center. Two rioters were killed that night. I gave my statement at the police statiom to a detective as the police chief, Rod Steiger 'In the Heat of the Night' lookalike, chomped on his stogie and called in all off-duty Tenton cops plus 'mutual aid' police from neighboring jurisdictions. Two were left in the police station -- me and the detective. Rioters broke into the nearly vacant police station, and started up the stairs to us threatening murder. They carried axe handles, metal implements and other weapons as the two of us stood at the stair top.. I was leaning on a cane, I could not walk unaided and was very vulnerable. The detecdtive had grabbed a shotgun, loaded it with buckshot, and aimed the gun at ascending rioters, all at point blank range, as he stood off the rioters. There are no photos of any of this. I judged that film, was too expensive to purchase in Manhattan as I left Manhattan by train. I convinced myself that I would buy film on arrival in Wash. D.C. but never go the chance. So, I had my Nikon with me but NO FILM! As the cop stood off the rioters, I envisioned the cover of Life magazine and possible Pulitzer Prize moment go by -- with no photo. That Pulitzer Prize moment of cop standing off race rioters never was to be. The Nikon haanging from my neck had no film!!! My fear of paying too much for film meant that my Nikon was useless through these cinematic events. It was a lesson well earned. John (Crosley)

Photography:Paper on Paper

Artist Produced Limited Edition of:20

Size:36 W x 27.8 H x 0.1 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.