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RUTLEDGE PHOTOGRAPHED
'BLACK LIKE ME'
By Tim Palmer
Missouri Word & Way
___MIDLOTHIAN, Va. (ABP) --Growing up in the 1930s and 1940s near Murfreesboro, Tenn., Don Rutledge saw racial segregation almost everywhere he looked. Except when he looked in the mirror.
___"There was just something, some way, that it didn't make sense at all that you would distrust somebody or hate somebody just on the color of their skin," said Rutledge, who is white.
___Nearly 40 years ago, Rutledge served as photographer for the book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. Rutledge, who lives in Midlothian, Va., recently looked back on that brief but unforgettable assignment in December 1959.
___Then 29 years old and determined to make a career of photography, Rutledge approached the Black Star photo agency with an idea for an article on black millionaire businessmen in Atlanta.
___Sepia magazine, which was similar to Look magazine but aimed at a black readership, liked the idea. "I was told they had assigned a writer, and he would meet me in Atlanta."
___The writer was John Howard Griffin. "At that time I had no idea of his background or what he'd been up to," Rutledge said.
___What Griffin, who was white, had been up to was traveling the Deep South disguised as a black man. His skin darkened by medication and makeup, he planned to do a series of articles on his experiences for Sepia, followed by a book.
___Griffin recalled their first meeting in Black Like Me. It took place on Dec. 4, 1959.
___"The Black Star photographer, Don Rutledge, arrived in his little Renault from Rockvale, Tennessee, around noon. ... I liked him immediately. He is a tall, somewhat skinny young fellow, married and has a child--a gentleman in every way."
___For Rutledge the feeling was mutual. "We connected really quickly and had much the same feelings about the race issue at the time in the South."
___After three days on the story project in Atlanta, Griffin was ready to return to New Orleans, the starting point for his journey as a black man. "Rutledge was anxious to get back to his wife and child."
___Griffin wrote: "I asked him if he knew a first-rate photographer in New Orleans, since I wanted to go back over the terrain again as a Negro and have photos made. The project fascinated him and we arranged to drive to New Orleans together so he could photograph it."
___Rutledge recalled: "I called Black Star and said I was going to disappear for awhile, but I'd be in touch. I didn't give details. We got in my little car and rode from Atlanta to Alabama to Mississippi and to New Orleans, where we did most of the photography."
___The two men found it easy to communicate on religion and other subjects, Rutledge noted. "He'd talk about his beliefs; I'd talk about mine." Griffin told Rutledge some of the abuse he endured as a black man, but Rutledge didn't find the information shocking. "It was very typical. I was not surprised at all, really."
___For lodging, sometimes the two men split up, other times Griffin knew places where blacks and whites could stay together. "It was always kind of a tense time of trying to work all these things out."
___On Dec. 14--10 days after the two men first met--Griffin wrote, "Finally the photos were taken, the project concluded, and I resumed for the final time my white identity."
___Asked if he had an inkling of the impact their project would have, Rutledge replied: "No, I don't think either one of us did. John was really wanting people to know about it, but I'm almost positive he didn't have any idea of what was going to happen out of it."
___Sepia's publication of Griffin's articles with Rutledge's photos beginning in early 1960--under the title "Journey Into Shame"--started a new chapter in the lives of the two men.
___Griffin was besieged with interview requests; he went on television with Dave Garroway, Mike Wallace and others.
___Black Star began getting calls and telegrams from publications all over the globe. Magazines were bidding against each other for the rights to the photos; figures in the hundreds of thousands of dollars were mentioned.
___Realizing there was a lot of money to be made, the publisher of Sepia began to pressure Rutledge for the negatives. "Here I was out there on the farm, and he was just screaming at me on the phone, demanding the pictures, threatening to sue me for all I was worth, which was not very much."
___Rutledge was summoned to a meeting in New York, as was Griffin. The photographer decided to give the negatives to the writer. "I said, `I'll loan the negatives to you for awhile until the publisher calms down, then you can give them back.' "Black Star was pretty upset with me; they wanted to control the release of them. I wasn't on staff, so legally they couldn't do anything to me. I was freelance."
___What Rutledge had wanted all along was to be a full-time Black Star photographer, and the flap over the Griffin photos opened the door. "One of the administrators said, `Don, if you're going to continue, you'll have to be staff, so we can be legally responsible." Rutledge answered, "`OK, if that's necessary.' Real casual-like."
___Rutledge left Black Star for the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board in 1966 and embarked on a career photographing missions. He moved to the Foreign Mission Board in 1980 and worked in 142 countries before his retirement last year.
___"I don't know how many times I've been asked if I'm the Don Rutledge who was the photographer in `Black Like Me,'" he said. Countless people have described the impact the book had in shaping their attitudes about racism.
___Rutledge said he appreciates the strides that have been made toward racial equality. "We've got a lot of progress to make yet, but we're a lot further along than we were during that time."
___Griffin died in 1980. Rutledge saw him a couple of times in the 20 years after their brief collaboration--once on a visit to Fort Worth. "Tears started running from his eyes and he grabbed me and started hugging me."
___Another time, Baptist Public Relations Association (now Baptist Communicators Association) met in Texas. Rutledge got Griffin to address the group and waive his $3,000 fee.
___"John Howard Griffin was an amazing person, and our work together is an experience I will always remember," Rutledge said. "I was just starting on my career in photojournalism at the time, and I will always be grateful that this was a part of those early days."
___Rutledge said he had a long, enjoyable visit with Griffin's widow, Elizabeth, last year in Fort Worth. There, Rutledge learned he was the only person to have seen Griffin both as a white person and as a black person.
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