Unseen but unforgotten

Old photos from the civil rights era.
BIRMINGHAM, Feb. 26 -- Previously unpublished photographs from the civil rights era were discovered in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News and appeared for the first time Sunday in a special section of the newspaper.

The cardboard box with thousands of negatives, marked "Keep. Do Not Sell," was discovered in November 2004 by a photo intern, Alexander Cohn, who went through the files and interviewed people in the pictures to help produce the eight-page section, "Unseen. Unforgotten."
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"The incredible box of photos recently discovered by the Birmingham News gives an amazing view of the civil rights movement in Alabama during the 60s. The photos are both eloquent and haunting, and the decision by the paper to suppress them at the time (they thought they would be "embarrassing" to the city's white community) is something history will most certainly judge them harshly for."
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"Vigorous and illuminating treatment by the press of similar situations in the future will require it to dig below the public rhetoric and explore the actual bases for policy decisions, which may or may not match the rhetoric and may or may not come from intelligence. It also will require going beyond the issue of "flagrant fouls" in the intelligence-policy relationship and considering the more numerous and more subtle ways in which intelligence can be politicized, both publicly and privately.
The long-lost Birmingham photos were extremely moving and quite inspirational. They document the struggle of incredibly brave people with no money who banded together to fight a powerful elite that controlled the media and did everything possible to keep their message from getting through. But time has a way of unraveling those conspiracies, and history will judge journalists who currently collaborate with power to perpetuate war with lies that go unchallenged just as harshly as it did those who thought it was a good idea to stick that box of photos in a closet some forty years ago."
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