By -Iconic “history making” photojournalist Haywood Galbreath-
For nearly 30 years what you've done to me and the Black Press you’re now saying that the administration of the black president is doing to you! WOW who would think that someone would try to deny news organizations “equal access” to gather their on images WOW! And tell them you can’t do it for yourself you have to take what we give you!
-“Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap”-
For almost 30 years I have been a working photojournalists. I chose early on in my career after working for some white owned news organizations to devote my career to working for the Black Press of America. For nearly 30 years I have fought diligently for the Black Press right to have equal access in covering news events. I have been called everything except a child God that which I profess to be most! I have been blackballed in the industry when it comes to covering major events in news, entertainment and sports and when my name is mentioned the word goes out that he is a troublemaker!
In 1994 because of my advocacy for Black Press of America I pulled off the biggest media coup of the century by becoming the only photojournalist in the world to have daily access to the O.J. Simpson double murder trial the trial of the century. The biggest news media event of the 20th century make no mistake about it! A news media event that changed the face of news coverage and money made off of news coverage in America! A news media event that set the stage for the gathering of images by news organizations that continues to this day. A news media event that turned news coverage of events into entertainment!
When the O.J. Simpson double murder trial ended because of what I had accomplished against all odds even though it was not my main goal. I should have walked away and became the most famous and widely known photojournalists in the United States and world! I should’ve had major endorsement deals from all the companies that make photographic equipment. I should have had several major book deals and I should have for the pass 19 ½ years been lecturing throughout the country and the world about my accomplishment. Instead I was made out to be a troublemaker a big mouth a uppity black guy and I was blackballed by the industry.
It is a well known fact in the journalism / photojournalism industry that if I had been a white photojournalists and accomplished half as much as what I accomplished in the O.J. Simpson double murder trial all the above things mentioned would have come to me. I would have been put on a pedestal for the world to see what a white guy can do reference getting close to black people in a major news event! And my tenacity to stand up and fight for what is right would have been shown to the world as the way a man is supposed to fight for his right to participate equally and would have been made out to be a good thing!
I bring all this up now because the same people who have for almost 30 years have plotted against me, work to destroy what I was trying to build for the Black Press having equal access and opportunity to document our on images so that we do not have to take what the white press gives us and can for ourselves give the American people especially the American African people a more truer picture of what we are and is going on are now complaining that the Obama Administration is limiting and denying them “equal access” to capture images independently for themselves! WOW who would think that someone would try to deny news organizations “equal access” to gather their on images WOW! And tell them you can’t do it for yourself you have to take what we give you!
The same people that are complaining in Washington, DC denied me opportunity to cover for the Black Press the inauguration of a president! Called my organization a joke when I tried to get equal access for the Black Press to cover the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Has spoken to the producers of events to have them deny me another black photographers access to cover events Los Angeles and throughout the country so that they may gather the images of American Africans who are participating in those events to sell back to the Black Press of America as well as throughout the world because black images sale! It is really not about the people’s right to know anymore but about the media’s right to make money lots of money off of the images!
Now these individuals who have fought so hard to deny me and have access denied to the Black Press and black photojournalist to cover events are now complaining that the Black president’s administration is denying them access to capture images of the president and special moments WOW! I knew that at some point because the moral arc of the universe bends toward righteousness and what is right more than wrong. The doers of wrong and the ones who have most benefited by denying other’s opportunity and having opportunities denied to others it would come back on them! They would cry how wrong it was to be denied opportunity and access!
I wrote the other day about the thief! That thief I was speaking of who had robbed me and continues to rob me was and is mainstream media in all forms! I also said what you thought was finished is just beginning! The word of God is not a lie for your going to reap what you have sowed! This is just beginning the moral arc is in my favor and the favor of all the others that mainstream media has wronged in reference to equal opportunity! It’s just beginning!
Related article: Nearly 40 news outlets accuse Obama administration of limiting access
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