Narrative images: Continuing King's Mission

"It was May 12, 1968, just one month after a bullet silenced the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and thousands of people were pouring into the streets.



Coretta Scott King, Dr. King’s widow, had called on Americans to join her in “a campaign of conscience” to uplift the poor. A picture from a news agency, which accompanied our (blogger's note: New York Times) article about her campaign, captured the scene from a distance, offering a wide view of the crowd in the nation’s capital.

Our staff photographer Don Hogan Charles took a different approach. He got close. He zoomed in. He focused on the individuals, not the multitudes, who gathered for the Newark leg of the demonstration. His image, published today for the first time, invites us to linger and to examine the faces.

Some seem hopeful, introspective and serene. Some look joyful and expectant. They are mostly women. (Mrs. King had called on “black women, white women, brown women and red women” to prod Congress to increase spending on poverty programs.) But there are men and children, too, people with lives and stories of their own, who decided to try to make a difference that day."

The New York Times

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