Randall, Herbert Eugene Jr.

Impact on the world

A freelance photographer for the Associated Press, United Press International, and Black Star from the late 1950s, Randall helped found the Kamoinge Workshop alongside Louis Draper, Ray Francis, James Mannas, and others in 1963, then used a John Hay Whitney Fellowship the following year to embed for an entire summer in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, documenting Freedom Schools, voter-registration canvassing, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at a time when Black photographers covering the movement faced constant threat of violence from segregationists. Only five of his photographs were published at the time, including an internationally circulated image of Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld bloodied after a segregationist attack, and the bulk of his 1,800 negatives sat unseen for 35 years until Randall donated them to the University of Southern Mississippi in 1999; his and archivist Bobs Tusa’s 2001 book Faces of Freedom Summer, drawn from the collection, is considered the definitive single-town visual chronicle of the movement, and a traveling exhibition of the work toured the country through 2003.

Life & background

Born December 16, 1936, in the Bronx to a family of Shinnecock, African American, and West Indian heritage, Randall studied photography under Harold Feinstein beginning in 1957 and worked as a freelance photojournalist through the 1960s while co-founding the Kamoinge Workshop in 1963. After Freedom Summer in 1964 he returned to New York, later serving as Coordinator of Photography for the New York City Board of Education and a consultant to the National Media Center Foundation; now retired, he lives on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation on Long Island, New York.

Sources

1. Mississippi Encyclopedia; University of Southern Mississippi McCain Library & Archives; The HistoryMakers