The African-American photographer Chester Higgins has made close to 50 trips to Africa since the early 1970’s. For much of that time he worked at the New York Times. But Higgins, now 75, hasn’t stopped documenting the continent’s history and culture.
After graduation, Higgins moved to New York and spent several years freelancing before being hired as a staff photographer at The New York Times in 1975. During the 39 years Higgins worked at the newspaper, some 40% of his images, he says, were of people of color. And he points with pride to the fact that he got a picture of Kwanzaa published in the paper almost every year, as well as images of a Coney Island beach ceremony commemorating the enslaved Africans who perished in the Atlantic Ocean during the Middle Passage.
Higgins recently received a lifetime achievement award from a group of veteran NYC journalists.
WBGO's Jon Kalish reports on the legacy of Chester Higgins.
