Klan Leader Resigns: Georgia Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Calvin Craig of Atlanta tells a news conference in Atlanta that he is resigning form the Klan to seek political office.

Calvin Craig's credentials as a race-baiting Klan leader were so well established that the Civil Rights Movement was stunned in April 1968 when Craig called a news conference to announce that he had resigned his Klan post to work for a nation where ''black men and white men can stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America.'' As stunning as the announcement was, what was even more startling was Mr. Craig's explanation that he had been led to his decision by Xernona Clayton, a black Civil Rights activist who was in charge of the Atlanta Model Cities program. This was a federally-financed interracial neighborhood improvement group. Although the timing of his announcement---a few days after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.---suggested that the killing may have influenced Mr. Craig's decision, he had already been moving toward racial harmony.

On recto: typewritten title and date.
On verso: manuscript title, date and newspaper stamp.

Wire photographs were originally transmitted over phonelines, then later, by satellite. They were first used in the early 1920s. Associated Press became a leader with this. After pigment touch-ups, etc., the print is put into a drum (like a drum scanner). The image gets converted into audio tones that are transmitted. The tones are received and beamed onto photo-sensitive paper. Wire photographs are copies without originals---they are hybrid, transmitted objects. (Britt Salvesen, Curator and Department Head, Photography Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 30-31, 2022)

This object has the following keywords:

• Calvin Craig
• Civil Rights Movements
• Hate
• Injustice
• Ku Klux Klan
• Male Portraits
• Press Conferences
• Race relations
• Racial Discrimination
• Resignations
• Resignations

• Image Dimensions: 8 1/4 x 4 5/16 in. (20.96 x 10.95 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen
• Sheet Dimensions: 9 3/16 x 5 3/8 in. (23.34 x 13.65 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen