Famed Civil-Rights Photog Was FBI Informant

Shocking news from Memphis: One of the most famous—and trusted—photographers from the civil-rights era, Ernest C. Withers, appears to have been a paid FBI informant. The Commercial Appeal of Memphis published the results of a two-year investigation that show Withers, who died in 2007 at the age of 85, had worked with FBI agents in the 1960s, giving them information on prominent civil-rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Withers was not only part of King’s inner circle and with King at the Lorraine Hotel the night he was assassinated, but he also boasted the largest catalog of any photographer covering the civil-rights movement in the South. Although paid informants' identities are usually kept secret, it appears there was an error that showed his informant number on some records; the FBI is investigating the lapse in privacy.