Journalists explore 1960s Memphis' strife

Two Memphis journalists provided an ASU audience on Feb. 18 a multimedia insight into news coverage of Memphis sanitation strike of 1968 and the aftermath that included the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Veteran editor George Hardin and longtime photojournalist Barney Sellers provided the commentary for the panel, and Memphis Commercial Appeal Assistant Photo Editor Jeff McAdory developed the multimedia show. The show, entitled "I am a man: the coverage of the sanitation workers strike and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, was the keynote event of last summer's National Press Photographers convention.

Hardin, at one time a photojournalist himself, covered covered segregation and integration in Little Rock and Memphis in the 1950s and 1960s. He also worked for the Tri-State Defender, before retiring from the Commercial Appeal in 1999. Sellers, longtime Commercial Appeal photographer who also covered the events of the 1960s and 70s. Mr. Sellers is an alumnus of ASU and also worked for the university before continuing his career in Memphis. He continues to work as an educator, freelance photographer and artist.

The event was cosponsored by the College of Communications, the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Office of Minority Affairs.