`SPECIAL MOMENTS' New Book Captures Highlights Of The Past 50 Years

Ebony, Dec, 1998

Ebony photographer Moneta Sleet Jr., the first Black male to win a Pulitzer Prize, celebrates unforgettable image and people

If you lived any part of the last 50 years and if you expect to live any part of the next 50, you ought to read Moneta Sleet Jr.'s magnificent celebration of the images and people who created the new world of Black and White America. Sleet, who was an EBONY photographer for more than 40 years and who was the first Black male to win a Pulitzer Prize, covered practically every major event involving Blacks and left a photographic legacy that illuminates and celebrates the human spirit. Special Moments in African-American History, a project of the Johnson Publishing Company Book Division, edited by Doris E. Saunders, captures his life's work in a book that includes more than 400 photographs and a memorable introduction by Sleets friend, superphotographer Gordon Parks, who said Sleet spoke "for those who died for worthy causes, for those born yesterday and for those who will be born tomorrow." The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph (opposite page) Sleet made of Coretta Scott King and her daughter, Bernice, at the King funeral is included in the book, and so are stunning photographs of almost every major Black athlete, entertainer and world leader of the time, as well as family photographs. Special Moments in African-American History, which has an Afterword by historian Lerone Bennett Jr., is distributed nationally by St. Martin's Press. "This is a book," Publisher John H. Johnson says, "that you will return to again and again to savor the special moments of 50 years that changed us forever."

Ebony photographer Moneta Sleet Jr., who died in 1996 at the age of 70, won a Pulitzer Prize for photograph (left) of widow Coretta Scott King and daughter Bernice at King funeral in 1968. Among rare photographs in new book are images (right, top to bottom) of young Muhammad Ali, Dizzy Gillespie in full flight, and Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King dressed for the occasion at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.

20th Anniversary of EBONY magazine in 1965 featured Founder-Publisher John H. Johnson (top left, r.), Secretary-Treasurer Eunice W. Johnson (2nd fr. l.) and icons (l. to r.) Jackie Robinson, Jim Brown and Sammy Davis Jr. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. (above) were photographed at the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. "Woman On The Road To Montgomery" (left) is considered one of Sleet's best photographs.

Grieving Betty Shabazz is framed by guards and supporters at Harlem funeral of Malcohn X. At March on Washington in 1963, Mahalia Jackson was captured singing "I Been `Buked and I Been Scorned."

At beginning of African Revolution. Sleet captured a private moment between Ghana leader Kwame Nkrumah and EBONY Publisher John H. Johnson at Ghana Inaugural Ceremony.

Young Arthur Ashe and weary Billie Holiday were captured by Sleet's lens.

Great photograph at Namibia inauguration integrated color, choreography and ritual. Honored (below) at exhibition at New York Public Library, Sleet is surrounded (below) by his family, including wife Juanita Harris Sleet (r.) and (l. to r.) Valerie Wilson, Emmy Lou Wilson, Gregory M. Sleet and his with Mary Grantham Sleet. Not pictured is daughter Lisa. Son Gregory M. Sleet is now a federal judge in Delaware.