by Gerald Boerner

  

JerryPhoto_8x8_P1010031 Moneta Sleet, Jr. was a photojournalist who documented the Civil Rights Movement, in general, and the work and life of Martin Luther King, Jr., in particular. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his touching photo of King’s wife and daughter at his funeral. He is acknowledge to have recorded the turbulent history of the movement with sensitivity and passion. While not well known in mainstream photojournalism, he was an important force in the Black community through his work with Ebony Magazine.  GLB

    

“He was my leader, too.”
Moneta Sleet, Jr.,
to King family when his Pulitzer Prize Photo was taken

“It’s not an easy life, so it’s important to have a family who understands. I have been very fortunate.”
— Moneta Sleet, Jr.

“I must say that I wasn’t there [at major civil rights demonstrations] as an objective reporter…”
— Moneta Sleet, Jr.

“It’s kind of a peculiar position to be in because, on one hand, you are there as [a photographer], but people soon forgot that.”
— Moneta Sleet, Jr.

“Because of his personal and professional interest in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Sleet came to know Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., well and produced one of the largest collections of candid shots of King and his family.”
— Moneta Sleet, Jr.

“To be perfectly honest I had something to say, or, at least hoped that I did, and was trying to show one side of it–because we didn’t have any problems finding the other side. So I was emotionally involved. That may not be a good school of journalism, but that’s the way I felt.”
— Moneta Sleet, Jr.

“The photographs ranged in mood from heart-rending sadness to triumph; included was a strikingly poignant photograph of blues great Billie Holiday, wearily resting her head on her needle-scarred arms, as well as a shot of an unknown, exultant woman tramping and singing through the rain during the 1965 Selma march.”
— On his exhibition in Washington, D.C.

“You try to develop the sensitivity and the ‘eye’ to see that very special mood of the moment. You develop the discipline to block out everything but you, the camera and the subject, and you develop the tenacity to stick with it, to have patience. The picture will happen–that very special picture will happen.”
— Moneta Sleet, Jr.

  

Black Photographers: Moneta Sleet, Jr.

MonetaSleet Moneta J. Sleet, Jr. (February 14, 1926 – September 30, 1996) won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his photograph of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s widow, Coretta Scott King, at Dr. King’s funeral. Sleet is the first African American man to win the Pulitzer, and the first African American to win award for journalism. He died of cancer in 1996 at the age of 70.

Sleet was born in Owensboro, Kentucky. He was editor of the school newspaper at Western High School, his alma mater. He graduated cum laude from Kentucky State College (now Kentucky State University), a historically black college, in 1947 and went on to obtain a Master’s degree in journalism from New York University.

From Owensboro, KY, he began taking photographs after his parents gave an old box camera. After graduating from high school, Sleet attended Kentucky State College and later he relocated to New York City. It was there that he earned a M.A. in journalism from NYU. In 1955, Sleet joined the staff at Ebony Magazine, covering many prominent moments of the Civil Rights Movement, the Nobel Peace Prize, and other world events.

 

Ebony Magazine

Coretta King at Funeral of Husband, Dr_ Martin Luther King, JrSleet began working for Ebony magazine in 1955. Over the next 41 years, he captured photos of young Muhammad Ali, Dizzy Gillespie, Stevie Wonder, and Billie Holiday. Besides his photo of Coretta Scott King, he also captured grieving widow Betty Shabazz at the funeral of Malcolm X. His collection Special Moments in African American History: The photographs of Moneta Sleet, Jr. 1955-1996 was published posthumously in 1999.

Exhibitions

In 1986, The New York Times provided the following assessment of his photographic oevier on exhibit:

FOR 35 years Moneta J. Sleet Jr. has been working all over the world as a photojournalist, taking pictures of places and people – ordinary people and superstars, leaders and followers – and the universal reaction from his living subjects is that ”Sleet” is a gentle man.

Funeral of Martin Luther king Jr Photograph by Moneta Sleet, Jr_jpgIn his current 125-photograph exhibition in the marbled Second Floor Galleries of the New York Public Library, this gentleness emerges movingly. His sensitivity flowers in his oft-seen Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Coretta Scott King tearfully clasping her daughter Bernice at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral.  There is an equally compassionate but lesser-known Sleet photograph of Betty Shabazz at the funeral of her husband, Malcolm X. Subjects in Mr. Sleet’s exhibition include his first professional assignment at the Harlem Hospital emergency room in 1951, independence celebrations in African nations, civil-rights marches in America, the homes and work places of celebrities, death row, beauty contests and visits to such places as a West Virginia mining town and Miami after a riot.

Personal Life

Moneta Sleet is the father of Gregory M. Sleet, a judge on the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.

BWDrMartinLutherKingJrandhiThere were flowers from Oprah Winfrey and Patti LaBelle, messages from Attorney General Janet Reno, Coretta Scott King and other civil rights leaders, tears, laughter and poetry at the funeral of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Moneta J. Sleet Jr. in the Unity Church of Christianity in the Long Island, NY, community of Valley Stream.

Hailed as one of the greatest photographers of the Freedom Movement and as a gentle giant with "a constant smile like a great flowing river," the Johnson Publishing Company photographer was celebrated in a simple and moving ceremony attended by friends, relatives and luminaries of the New York business, civic and media worlds, and an unusually large gathering of prize-winning photographers. Sleet, 70, was the first Black male and the first Black photographer to win a Pulitzer Prize. He died of cancer in New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

feature_1920The principal mourners included Sleet’s wife of 46 years, Juanita Harris Sleet; his daughter, Lisa; two sons, Gregory and Michael; a sister, Emmy Lou Wilson; and three grandchildren, Moneta Sleet III, Kelsi Marie Sleet and Ashley Evertsz. Gregory Sleet, the United States attorney for Delaware, expressed thanks on behalf of the family.

Tributes and reflections were offered by nephew Michael Harris, photographer Bertrand D. Miles, EBONY Executive Editor Lerone Bennett Jr., photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks, and John H. Johnson, Johnson Publishing Company founder, chairman and CEO and Medal of Freedom recipient.

     

References:

Deborah Willis. (2002) Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present. W.W. Norton & Co.

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Moneta Sleet, Jr… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneta_Sleet,_Jr.

Web Sites and Blogs:

The New York Times: The Vision of Moneta Sleet in Show…
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/19/arts/the-vision-of-moneta-sleet-in-show.html

African American Registry: Moneta Sleet…
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/969/Moneta_Sleet_photographer_of_excellence

BNET: Moneta J. Sleet, Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning Photographer, Eulogized in New York…
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n23_v90/ai_18788775/