The Signature of the Spirit: An Interview with Chester Higgins

Abstract

The Signature of the Spirit An Interview with Chester Higgins* Charles Henry Rowell ROWELL: You are a photojournalist for the New York Times. In fact, you have worked for the Times since 1975. But you’re also a fine art photographer. For me, these two are contrary poles—a fine art photographer and a photojournalist. The one is documentation, and the other is art. How do you negotiate between these poles? HIGGINS: [Laughter] Well, good question. I think that I’m torn between two things. One is that I want to get my message out, which is my art . . . when I was a youngster in the South, the most formidable images were those of the Civil Rights struggle, made by Northern photographers, published in the national press. For me, the New York Times is the national press that goes to decision makers. And because I’m an artist as well as a social activist, I’m not content with just sitting back and creating out of my head and having just a small group of people know about it and appreciate it. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to reach exclusive groups—I do. Of course I want to reach that art community. But I also want to reach a larger community: not only the image makers, but also political decision makers. I’ll give an example. In the early 1970s when I was living in the summers in Africa—I would go over every summer—and one year, I think it was around 1974, 1973, I became aware of a hunger crisis happening to the people in Niger. They were suffering a huge drought. I came back to New York and I started fundraising to pay for a trip for me to document this. I returned to Africa to northern Niger and came back with photographs of the suffering. My reason for getting involved is because I knew that the job of trying to save these people’s lives was bigger than what they or their government could handle. They needed outside help. They needed American help. But in order to get the American government involved, I needed a way to reach out to the decision makers. I went to the New York Times with the photographs, and I laid out these many photographs for them. I said, “Look, here is the story on this human tragedy that’s going on. We should do something about it. Our country should do something about it.” My hope was that if we could get the right mixture of my images with text by opinion makers in the Times, we could make a difference. Well, from those pictures, I think two or three op-ed editorials ran. In addition, I paid back my sponsors by making fundraising posters. Those op-ed editorials made a difference. It got the American government engaged. It got USIA engaged. And before long, within a month, shipments of tons and tons of food and seeds were on their [End Page 139] way to a place that, the week before, nobody had even heard of called Niger, way up into the interior of the country, in Agadez. What I did in Niger was in the tradition of using the humanistic image to change how America saw civil rights workers, thus becoming sympathetic to the civil rights movement. The conscious image in the national press makes a difference. I’m concerned about reach. I’m concerned about the art, number one. But I’m also concerned about reach. To me, the New York Times gives me an opportunity to do several things. It gives me an opportunity to project my name, my brand, with the photographs that I produce, allowing me possible influence on people who can make a difference. If I take another example . . . let’s take Kwanzaa. I’ve always been very Afro-centric, or back in the old days, I guess it was called “cultural nationalist.” And the first image of Kwanzaa ever to be made in the national press was made by me for Time magazine back in, I think, 1972/1973. And when I came to the Times, I made sure, because...