The Man over MLK's Shoulder has a Name

Some internet detective work on the MLK "I have a dream" speech turned up a story about the people standing behind him. In 2010 USA Today ran a story about the background figures from the televised image, including the man who is strikingly visible over MLK's right shoulder and whom I discuss in the previous post.

Why did it take so long to to dissolve the anonymity of the people behind MLK? The newspaper article connects us to their private lives the way they were known to their families, a private history.

He turns out to be a cop, Charlie Jenkins, one of a handful of black police officers picked to guard MLK that day.

(Photo altered by USA Today)

How does this photo, with altered grayscale for Charlie Jenkins' face, change his background status? I think it transforms the extra into the star and moves our historical focus away from this monumental event and toward a man the Jenkins family remembers.

Now that this "extra" has been identified, he is given a private history and is no longer an appendage to this speech, more and less than a historical marker.