Beuford Smith
1941–
Audio
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Beuford Smith, Man Crying, (MLK Essay), 1968
Beuford Smith, Man Crying, (MLK Essay), 1968
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Beuford Smith: This was part of my “Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr." essay. This was taken on 125th Street and I think Lenox Avenue. The man was crying because a white delivery man and he had made some kind of delivery. And people were attacking him, you know punching him, etcetera. And he was crying “please don’t attack him, leave him alone,” Martin Luther King wouldn’t like that. That’s why he was crying. That’s one of my favorite photographs.
Narrator: Smith has described the difficulty of getting mainstream magazines to publish works like this one.
Beuford Smith: I tried to get Look Magazine, the other magazines interested in it but they didn’t want to touch it. They said, oh no if that had been in color we would get it, we would buy it. But if it had been color they would have said, oh if it was black and white we would buy it. But if a white photographer had taken it, it would have been there. See, racism was not—someone was talking about racism, and stuff like that. In my lifetime, no one has ever called me the N-word, except growing up when I was fifteen or sixteen years old. But as an adult, a young adult, the racism that I have faced is racism that’s subtle, you can’t really prove.
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Beuford Smith, Two Bass Hit, Lower East Side, 1972
Beuford Smith, Two Bass Hit, Lower East Side, 1972
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Beuford Smith: I couldn’t have staged this any better than this, a profile of a Black musician.
Narrator: Beuford Smith.
Beuford Smith: Then there’s the white bass player there. So there’s the integration of the music and two bass players. So I call it Two Bass Hit, named after one of Dizzy Gillespie’s tunes, "Two Bass Hit." That’s one of my favorite photographs. I love that picture. And I can hear and feel the music.
Narrator: The photograph came together very spontaneously. Smith had gone into a club called The Cave, which had parachutes hanging from the ceiling. He bought a bottle of beer, and sat down to listen.
Beuford Smith: No one was in the club. Maybe two or three people sitting in there. That was it. I’ve always been very fortunate, when I go to jazz clubs, I’ve always lucked out that I can always get a good shot that I consider a good shot. There might have been two or three people in that club. It’s one of those clubs that during that time they just had tea or something. And that was it. I don't think I had to pay to get in. No, it was that kind of place.
