Preliminary Inventory of the Don Sturkey Photographic Negatives, 1951-1989

Collection Number P70

North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Contact Information:

North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives

CB#3930, Wilson Library

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890

Phone: 919/962-7992

Fax: 919/843-0418

Email: photoarchives@unc.edu

URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/photos.html

Descriptive Summary

Repository

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. North Carolina Collection.

Creator

Don Sturkey

Title

Don Sturkey Photographic Negatives, 1951-1989

Call Number

P70

Language of Materials

Materials in English

Extent

Items: Approximately 104,000 photographic negatives

Administrative Information

Restrictions to Access

No restrictions.

Acquisitions Information

The photographic negatives were donated to the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives by Don Sturkey in 2005.

Processing Information

Processed by: Jodi Berkowitz, September 2005

Encoded by: Jodi Berkowitz, October 2005

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Don Sturkey Photographic Negatives #P70, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by Don Sturkey.

Related Collections

The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County is a permanent depository for negatives related to photographs appearing in the Charlotte Observer. The negatives date from 1956-1994.

Biographical Note

Don Sturkey (b. [1931], Lincolnton, Georgia) retired as chief photographer of the Charlotte Observer in 1989 after 34 years. Sturkey, a long time North Carolinian, arrived at his profession by chance; as a member of the Navy in the 1940s assigned to shore duty in Washington, Sturkey repeatedly asked to be transferred, including to photography school. In late 1949, he was granted this opportunity. Sturkey went on to be the first staff photographer at the Shelby Daily Star and worked there for one summer. He attended Gardner-Webb College in Boiling Springs, N.C. and joined the staff of the High Point Enterprise following college. Sturkey began working at the Charlotte Observer in November of 1955.

In 1961 Sturkey was named National Newspaper Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association for work he completed in 1960. He was the first Southerner to win this award. Sturkey's work has appeared in periodicals including Time, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, and Ebony. He served as president of the Carolinas Press Photographers Association in 1965, as chairman of the National Press Photographers Ethics Committee in 1975, and as chairman of the National Press Photographers Association's National Pictures of the Year competition in 1976. Sturkey is the author of A Slice of Time: A Carolina's Album 1950-90 (1990), which includes highlights of his work covering the Carolinas, and provided photographs for The Catawba River (1983) and Becoming truly free: 300 years of black history in the Carolinas (1985). In 1991, Sturkey was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame.

Collection Overview

This collection is comprised of the photographic negatives created by Don Sturkey from 1951-1989. The majority of the negatives were produced in his capacity as staff photographer for the Charlotte Observer (1955-1989). Primarily depicted are local news and sports events covered by Sturkey. Sturkey captured numerous images portraying the tense racial climate of the time, including Ku Klux Klan meetings and rallies, blacks and whites picketing segregated establishments, a lottery drawing for school integration in the Charlotte and Mecklenburg County public schools, and Dorothy Counts, the first black student to attend Harding High School in Charlotte, in 1957. Also photographed were Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Benjamin Chavis, and Rosa Parks. Politicians photographed, largely while campaigning for office, include Senator Eugene McCarthy, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, President Richard Nixon, President John F. Kennedy, President Jimmy Carter, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Vice President Al Gore, Senator Bob Dole and Elizabeth Dole, Senator Strom Thurmond, Senator and Mrs. Jesse Helms, and President Ronald Reagan. Musicians photographed by Sturkey include Elvis Presley (in 1956), Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, James Brown, and Johnny Cash. Sturkey also captured the launches of the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 NASA missions.

Also included is the portfolio which earned him his 1960 National Newspaper Photographer of the Year award, which contains images of John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy and Richard Nixon during their respective presidential campaigns.

Detailed Description of the Collection