Independent Lens

The Picture Taker

By Phil Bertelsen. A co-production of Picture Taker, LLC, Realization Pictures, the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and Black Public Media (BPM), in association with K2 Pictures and Ark Media.

From his Memphis studio, Ernest 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?