The sun has set on a long winter afternoon of conversation between Chicago photographers Bob Black and Howard Simmons. They have stories. They represent history. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Black and Simmons were photographers at the Chicago Sun-Times. In 1968 Black was the first Black photographer hired by the newspaper. Simmons was the second Black photographer on staff. [The Chicago Daily News’ John Tweedle (1937-1981) was the first Black photographer at a major metropolitan daily.] As they are talking a robin lands on a tree in the backyard of the Logan Square home Black shares with his long-time wife Olga. The robin seems out of place during this cool season, but then this is a perfect place for it to land. These men embody the rebirth of spring.
They are hopeful souls.
Olga has been taking pictures of the interviews. Before taking a formal portrait of Black, Simmons, and Paul Natkin, Black asks Olga to bring him his Leica camera. Black is a loyal Leica man because the camera is quiet and not invasive. He gently places the Leica around his neck. It is part of him, like an arm or a gentle hand. And Olga takes the picture.
Black’s unassuming and congenial character is what connects him with his subjects.
Black had only been at the Sun-Times for a month when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, TN. It was essential for him to illustrate how the murder affected the Black community. Immediately after hearing the news on WVON-AM radio, Black drove from his home at 38th and State Street to Liberty Baptist Church at what is now 4849 S. King Drive. It was the neighborhood in which he grew up. The church opened its doors for mourners and comfort.
The young photographer was respectful of the people in the church. Black only used available light. He sat by himself with his Leica. He wanted to blend in. Black made a compelling image of a young, weeping Black woman whose leg buckled under the weight of the moment. It has
been said that photography is about capturing the decisive moment. These were moments that would change America. Black’s pictures gave a powerful voice to the community. “I thought I was going to have company from other media people,” Black said. “But nobody knew anything about it. I was off duty. I was working days. But my being part of the community was a key factor. I knew exactly where to go and how to conduct myself.”
Bob Black was born on June 4, 1939, in Chicago. He was the oldest of four children. His father Clarence Black, Jr. was a postal worker. His mother Elaine was a crossing guard and hair stylist. Black attended Chicago public schools and Woodrow Wilson Junior College before beginning his photography career. He knew he wanted to be a photojournalist since high school. Black was drawn into the documentarian soul of photographer Gordon Parks. Every week Black bought a copy of Life magazine to see Gordon’s latest work. He watched Chicago Defender photographers like Herman Santonio “Tony” Rhoden (also the chief photographer for Mayor Richard J. Daley) and Cleo Lyle to learn how to frame a subject and when to use a flash.
Black launched his career in 1965 as a staff photographer at the Defender. He was at the Sun-Times from 1968 until he retired in 2006. In Black’s early years a tight bond was formed with the handful of Black photographers working the street. Besides Black and Simmons there were trailblazers John H. White (Chicago Daily News and Sun-Times) and Ovie Carter (Chicago Tribune’s first Black photographer).
“We were able to have the strength of each other in order to overcome a lot of the obstacles that were thrown in our way,” Black explained. “There were obstacles, believe me. But we got through it. Even though we were working for competing organizations we never felt competitive
with each other. And people in the community looked up to us. We made them feel proud.”
Simmons said, “Bob is a big factor in my career. I started with Ebony magazine. I was in the photo lab of an advertising agency and before that I was an industrial photographer. So I said, ‘I’m going to go to Chicago and hit on Ebony magazine.’ It was 1968. That was my first job as a professional photographer. And it was a fairy tale.” Simmons became a roaming Ebony photographer, shooting 40 out of town assignments in nine months. “It was just before I got married,” he said. “I asked Mr. (John ) Johnson (publisher) for a raise because I was getting married. He said no. But I had run into this photographer in a supermarket on the South Side. He had a Leica hanging around his neck. I thought, ‘This guy has to be a pro.’ Especially in those days to see a Black photographer with a Leica. It was Bob Black. He was with the Sun-Times.” Black suggested that Simmons come to the Sun-Times. The Sun-Times met Simmons salary request in 1968 and he wound up staying at the paper until 1976.
Later in his Sun-Times rookie year of 1968 Black took evocative images of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. On the evening of August 26, 1968 Black was attacked by two policemen with clubs as he took pictures of a demonstrator at Division and Wells on the north side.
Black was beloved by his Sun-Times colleagues for his steadfast style. When Bob walked into the photo lab the photo staff would stand to acknowledge his presence. In unison, they would say, ‘All rise!’ Their command was always followed by Black replying with a smile on his face, “At ease.’ He earned the nickname “The Legend” within the photo staff. His calm, warmth and resolve left an imprint on younger photographers. Black was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame in 2019 and in 2022 he won a Studs Terkel Award, presented by Chicago’s Public Narrative. Black is the picture-proud father of five children, grandfather of three, and great-grandfather of three.
“I’ve been blessed that I’ve been through all the paradigm changes,” he said of his profession and not necessarily his children. “Starting at the beginning when everything was on black and white film. Then we started shooting color. And slides, which is not easy to do because you had to be right on the money with exposures. The digital era. At the beginning of digital, they were still developing film in the darkroom but they weren’t making prints. They were scanning the negatives on a computer screen. That’s when we had the first versions of photoshop. I was an old-timer when digital came in. But his style has consistently embraced the possibilities of illumination. “I try to use natural light, available light,” he said. “These days you can change film sensitivity just by turning it down on your camera. In the old days it was grain in film, the spots that you saw. The quality of the film got better so you didn’t get a lot of grain. Now, in the digital era they call it noise. You can correct that now. Even Photoshop has AI processing and noise reduction.”
Throughout his award-winning career, Black has also embraced measured empathy. And hope. Before one Sun-Times assignment in the early 1990s he befriended a pastor in his west side church office. He told Black that one of the subjects of his assignment was a woman who was dying of kidney failure. “She was on the waitlist,” Black recalled.
“Another woman’s son had been shot and killed. The hospital asked her if she would be willing to donate his kidneys. And the mother said yes. This had been at least a year before. This woman came to thank the woman at a memorial service for the son. That’s when I took the picture. The photo desk didn’t give me all that was happening until I sat down with the pastor. What was so powerful was that the woman dying was white. And the woman who lost her son was Black. And when they stood up they both were dabbing their eyes. I was dabbing my eyes too. All this racist crap? Why?
“On the inside, we’re all the same.”
-Dave Hoekstra
