Ernest Withers (August 7, 1922 – October 15, 2007) was an African American freelance photographer famous for his black and white images of the segregated South in the 1950s and 60s, Negro league baseball, and the Memphis blues scene.
His images captured America for nearly 60 years, preserving the good and the bad, in particular, racism. He traveled with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his public life. Withers' coverage of the Emmett Till murder trial brought national attention to the racial violence taking place during the 1950s in Mississippi, among other places.
Evidence that surfaced in 2010 shows that in the years 1968 to 1970 Ernest Withers was forced to serve as a paid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover. Withers reported on the activity of several Civil Rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr.
