And the photographer Ernest Withers has died. Withers was one of the most prominent photographers to come out of the civil rights era. He photographed Dr. Martin Luther King at several marches and was the only photographer to cover the entire trial of those accused in the murder of the black teenager Emmett Till. Last January, Democracy Now! interviewed Ernest Withers at his studio in Memphis, Tennessee. He talked about one of his most famous pictures — a mass of striking sanitation workers holding signs reading “I am a man,” at what would turn out to be the last march led by Dr. King.

Ernest Withers: “The last march of his, of Martin King, they were lined up there at [inaudible] and Hernando outside of Cleveland Temple Church, and they were there with all those ’I’m a Man’ signs. And I thought it was dramatic and historic in what it was, but I didn’t know it was ending up to be as popular. But it was the last march of Martin King.”

Ernest Withers died this week at the age of 85.