C. M. Battey

He moved to Manhattan, New York City, and worked for six years in the Bradley Photographic Studio on Fifth Avenue, where he held the position of superintendent.

[2] As his fame grew, he also photographed white leaders such as President Calvin Coolidge and United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William Howard Taft.

[5] Battey taught courses in photography and at the same time documented the campus and its students and faculty, creating a unique record of black college life in the early twentieth century.

During his years at Tuskegee, Battey published a special edition of a print that visually linked four famous African-Americans with George Washington as a way of reclaiming black Americans' place in history.

[5] Originally entitled Five Negro Immortals, the photogravure was published in 1911 as Our Heroes of Destiny and included Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, and Paul Laurence Dunbar.

[4] In 1989, Battey's work was included in the exhibition "Black Photographers Bear Witness: 100 Years of Social Protest" at the Williams College Museum of Art.