A reporter and photographer who helped chronicle the Civil Rights Movement will give a lecture tonight at 6 at the B. Carroll Reece Memorial Museum on campus.
The lecture will be given by George Hardin, guest of Dr. Dorothy Drinkard-Hawkshawe Professor and Director of African/African-American Studies Program, Department of History.
Hardin worked as a reporter and photographer during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
He will give a discussion about his work and show slides of his photography during this time and about the relation of civil rights and voting rights.
Hardin visited a copy editing class Wednesday in Warf-Pickel Hall. The class of 15 students got to have an open forum discussion with Hardin about what it is like to work for a newspaper and his past experiences.
“You can take a good story and make it better but you can’t take a bad story and make it better,” Hardin said.
This is just some of the advice he had to offer a group of future journalists.
Hardin has experience in reporting, photography, copy editing and public relations. He has worked at three weekly newspapers, and also at the daily newspaper The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn.
Students asked questions about newspapers and what it was like to report during the Civil Rights Movement and what fears he had.
“It wasn’t easy,” he said. “I was arrested three times for reporting and several of my colleagues were severely beaten.”
“Also back in the day, the newspapers would only print courtesy titles to white people and you would see stereotypical images of African-Americans, but not so much today.”
Hardin took an interest in writing at an early age. He went to Tennessee State University in Nashville where he studied English.
Hardin gave the students advice about reporting and told them to just be true, just and honest when reporting the news.

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