Will Counts

Documenting the integration effort in the 1950s, he captured the harassment and violence that African Americans in the South were facing at this time.

[2] During his junior year, Counts asked his mother for a Speed Graphic camera for Christmas after he had seen one advertised in Boys' Life magazine.

[3] However, with his father still away fighting in World War II, his mother could only afford to buy a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye.

Still a photographer for the Democrat, Counts captured white demonstrators and the National Guard gathering outside Central High.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that "separate but equal" was unconstitutional, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had called the Guard to block integration.

One of Counts' most famous images captures African-American Elizabeth Eckford being harassed by an angry white mob of students after being denied entrance at Central High.

He states that he wore an inconspicuous red shirt and slacks while shooting to blend in with the crowd as a way to avoid looking like a journalist.

Counts wrote in a story accompanying the photo that Wilson wanted to retain his dignity, and refused to fight back.

[4] During this time, a period of explosive growth in Indiana's journalism department, Counts earned his doctorate and became Encyclopædia Britannica's expert on photojournalism.

The title came from a line spoken to him by Hazel Massery, the same girl who is seen snarling and shouting at Elizabeth Eckford in his iconic 1957 photograph.

[1] The photograph was said to have led President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to protect African Americans during the integration effort.