An Iconic Photo, a Distinction Lost

As a photographer for the Associated Press in the late 1960s, Steve Starr witnessed a lot of American history firsthand.

But it wasn’t until members of Cornell University’s Afro-American Society seized the student union in 1969 that he captured an image that has come to symbolize not only the incident itself but often conflicting views about social justice and race on campus.

In the photo, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970, the occupiers are shown leaving Willard Straight Hall after a tense standoff, some carrying firearms. The student activists had entered the building unarmed 36 hours earlier but smuggled in the guns only after white fraternity members tried to force their way inside.

“Oh my God, look at those goddamned guns,” Mr. Starr recalls saying as the protesters emerged.

Today, after 50 years in the news business, Mr. Starr is a “photojournalist emeritus.” He lives in Colorado and is a friar with the Franciscan Order of the Divine Compassion, an Episcopalian religious order.

In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Starr described the dramatic scene on that April afternoon and discussed how his provocative photo is often misconstrued. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q. Can you briefly describe the scene as you took the photo?

A. As an AP staffer, I knew that if the students came out with signs and a black-power salute or something it would be just another student-demonstration story, way back in the next day’s newspapers. With armed black students in a privileged program at an Ivy League school, I knew it would be a major, Page 1 story everywhere. I had heard rumors that the students were armed but was unable to confirm the whispers.

So when I saw the weapons — shotguns, long rifles, spears, and clubs, I knew it was a major story. I remember the reporter, the AP correspondent from Buffalo, shouting into a pay phone, “Bulletin!” as he dictated his story. To label a story “Bulletin” in AP protocol was a very, very major deal.

Q. How do you feel about the photo today?

A. Today the picture is politically incorrect and it doesn’t get a lot of play. The picture runs counter to the Martin Luther King nonviolent civil-rights narrative. It is true that the black students saw themselves as armed for their defense, but that’s a distinction that gets buried in the popular, quick view of the photo.

You have to place the picture into its 1969 context. Campuses all over the country were erupting in protests, many violent, against the Vietnam War. I was covering violent protests for the AP all over the northeastern states — I had my arm broken by a police club one night at the University of Buffalo. The major issue was not race or racial injustice — it was the draft and the war, and the ever-increasing death toll from the war.

It was obvious to many of us covering the protests that it was only a matter of time until the protests would result in deaths. Our fears were confirmed at Kent State — John Filo’s Pulitzer Kent State photo was taken on May 4, 1970 — the very day I was awarded the Pulitzer.

Q. Do you see parallels today to what happened at Cornell in 1969?

A. Yes, of course, there are parallels, but the 1968-1973 era was quite a different context. Ironically, Cornell was way ahead of the curve in trying to be inclusive and diversify. And the university paid a heavy price with President Perkins resigning, alumni withdrawing donations, and faculty rebelling. In the Cornell Pulitzer picture, at right there’s a black campus police officer — in 1969 his presence was practically unheard of; that’s how far ahead Cornell was.

Q. Finally, can you quickly say how you went from an award-winning photographer to a Franciscan friar?

A. Well, in my head at least, it’s all perfectly linear. As a photojournalist I always saw myself as performing a public, almost sacred, purpose. Somehow the pictures would make a difference. Readers would see the violence, the suffering, and the oppression, and the pictures would change hearts. The notion can be seen as hopefully naïve, I know, but I kept the photojournalism faith for 50 years and tried to make a difference with the pictures.

As Franciscans we’re also trying, essentially, to make a difference, but we’re trying through God, Jesus, and faith, not pictures. In full-on retirement I’ve pretty much hung up my cameras. I needed a specific purpose to fill the void. The Franciscan way does that.