Back to: Independent Lens
![](/files/wfyi/programs_television/current/yxhkgm0-asset-mezzanine-16x9-g6acduz.jpg)
S24E7
The Picture Taker
January 30, 2023
The vibrant life of Ernest Withers—civil rights photographer, and FBI informant—was anything but black and white. From his Memphis studio, Withers' nearly 2 million images were a treasured record of Black history but his legacy was complicated by decades of secret FBI service revealed only after his death. Was he a friend of the civil rights community, or enemy—or both?