Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum, Moakley Archive & Institute, History, Language & Global Culture and Communication, Journalism & Media Departments, Black Alumni Network, Office of Diversity, Access, and Inclusion, Student Office of Diversity, The Boston Desegregation and Busing Initiative, and GBH Forum Network present:
The Soiling of Old Glory: The Story of a Photograph That Shocked America
An evening of conversation with acclaimed historian and author Louis P. Masur, author of The Soiling of Old Glory: The Photography that Shocked America, Theodore “Ted” Landsmark, distinguished professor of public policy and urban affairs and director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, and Stanley Forman, Pulitzer-Prize winning photojournalist. The evening’s moderator is Robert Allison, professor, History, Language & Global Culture Department, Suffolk University.
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Sargent Hall, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, Fifth Floor Commons
6:00 p.m. In-person and live via ZOOM
In-person registration is not required
Register Here for ZOOM
https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/5816952382129/WN_nmgESDM_SUelv2kT8Wpn7g#/registration
This event is free and open to the public.
Boston, April 5, 1976. As the city simmered with racial tension over forced school busing, newsman Stanley Forman photographed a white protester outside City Hall assaulting the Black attorney Ted Landsmark with the American flag. The photograph shocked Boston and made front pages across the U.S. and the world and won a Pulitzer Prize. Masur has done extensive research, including personal interviews with those involved, to reveal the unknown story of what really happened that day and afterward. This evocative “biography of a photograph” unpacks this arresting image to trace the lives of the men who intersected at that moment, to examine the power of photography and the meaning of the flag, and to reveal how a single picture helped change race relations in Boston and America. The Soiling of Old Glory, like the photograph itself, offers a dramatic window into the turbulence of the 1970s and race relations in America.
