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Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture > Exhibitions Moneta Sleet, Jr.: Pulitzer Prize PhotojournalistFrom November 8, 2007 through December 31, 2007
Moneta Sleet, Jr. was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1926, and received his first camera at the age of nine. After studying photography at the New York School of Modern Photography and journalism at New York University, he worked as a staff photographer for the New York Amsterdam News and Our World magazine, before joining the Johnson Publishing Company in 1955 where he remained until his death in 1996. This retrospective collection of 125 photographs, drawn largely from images Sleet shot for Johnson Publishing, divides his work into six sections: the era of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Civil Rights Movement; Africa; Photo Essays; Portraits; and Children. It was Sleet's gripping picture of Coretta Scott King and her youngest daughter, Bernice, at Dr. King's funeral that in 1969 earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography; he was the first African American to be so honored. |
