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Dallas Kinney, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for the Post.
More: A mother’s dream fulfilled, 40 years later
Photos: Dallas Kinney’s Pulitzer-winning photos, and a look at Pahokee now
Dallas Kinney repeats the phrase as a mantra, hoping if you hear it enough times, you will realize what his career – no, his life – has been about:
Do you understand?
When he looked at the world through the lens of a camera, he wanted others to understand the story his pictures told. Whenever they missed the point, he felt it invalidated his work.
And maybe that pressure is why he lasted just five short years as a photojournalist. When Dallas Kinney won the Pulitzer Prize at The Palm Beach Post on May 4, 1970 for exposing the trials of African-American migrant farmers in the Glades, it was the beginning of the end of his career.
"Never again," said Kinney, now 73.
Kinney had trained under one of the greats in American photography, Ansel Adams, and shot photos of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death and Robert F. Kennedy days before his assassination.
At the Post, he had set out to alert readers to the plight just on the other side of their county: Field hands were living in crushing poverty and forced into a nomadic life of indentured servitude.
"His pictures are haunting. They capture people’s essence," said Kent Pollock, the reporter who wrote the accompanying stories for the eight-day series in October 1969. "They evoke emotion."
Lillie Mae Brown, whom Dallas Kinney met in a Pahokee labor camp 40 years ago.
But the results were nothing like what Kinney expected. More than 1,500 of the paper’s 70,000 readers canceled their subscriptions.
When the Pulitzer Prize was announced in 1970, Pollock, just 22 years old and caught up in the moment, poured champagne over Kinney’s head and that image would be on the cover of the next day’s paper. At least one migrant quoted in the series, feeling used, called to remind Kinney that his subjects were still languishing in the fields.
Kinney walked into the managing editor’s office the next day, closed the door, and said, "What do I do now?"
"Imagine winning the ultimate prize and learning you had failed," said Kinney, who had grown up a poor Iowa farmer himself. "They didn’t understand, and that’s why it was a hollow victory."
Even 40 years later, Pollock, today a professor of journalism at Sierra College in California, wonders whether the champagne bath, tied with the pressure of winning the Pulitzer at just 33, doomed Kinney’s career.
Kinney said the man with the basket of snap beans was the signature photograph for his series.
"The Pulitzer drove Dallas out of the business," Pollock said. "I have, for a long time, felt guilty for pouring champagne over Dallas. I’m haunted by the belief that if I hadn’t done that … I suppose he might have taken a different vision of the profession."
The following year, Kinney left The Post and never again worked as a photojournalist. He returned to newspapers as an editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, even to The Post in 1973 as an editor, and was hired to document the last crusade of evangelist Billy Graham. But he never again published another photo as a journalist.
By February 1976, after a failed marriage, Kinney started drinking to dull his senses.
"I was a mess," Kinney said. "Divorced. Living in a little cubicle alone in an apartment above a garage. My best friends were a bottle of scotch in one hand and a Bible in the other."
Then a friend dragged him to a meeting of Cursillos in Christianity, a moment that reconnected Kinney to an old friend – Lillie Mae Brown, the subject of his prize-winning photos. He had always been moved by the unwavering faith she felt would guide her from a life of suffering to the splendors of heaven.
"That connection with God is something I’d never encountered before," Kinney said. "My providential meeting with Lillie Mae Brown and getting to know the same God she did, that is the core of who I am and what I’m doing."
That winter, he married his current wife of 33 years, Martha. They moved to Mesa, Ariz., and ran a corporate communications company for more than 20 years before the couple moved to Dahlonega, Ga.
Kinney still photographs to tell stories through the lens of a camera, but not for mass consumption. His pictures jump off the page, haunting in their richness, but he never thought of his photography as art.
Rather, he said the camera was a "necessary intrusion" for helping others to understand a larger message.
"I’m not a photographer, I’m a communicator," he said. "The camera was a tool to me, not a way of life."
To see more of Kinney’s work, visit his website at dallaskinney.zenfolio.com.
Knowing Dallas Kinney for many years (since his Iowa days) and I have nothing but praise and respect for Dallas. Being a photographer of some note myself (advertising illustration) I can affirm that Dallas is a superb photographer and even a better man in his faith.
Dallas doesn’t just talk the talk, Dallas is a man who deeply lives his beliefs….a rarity in todays secular world.
Proud to know Dallas, and overjoyed to call him a dear friend.
I was in the room when the award was announced, the champagne poured,a Pulitzer is a great day for any publication. A question was asked of Dallas…Where do you go from here? The way he has tried to live his life since is testament to his true humanity and deep faith. I am very happy to have worked with Dallas, been through a lot with him and treasure the love and support he has given me. This is a special man who dearly cares about and for his fellow human beings.
I can attest to the amazing skill Dallas employs in using his camera to communicate. Almost weekly, he corrects or guides me using his “do you understand” mantra. And I usually don’t, until he explains it to me! When I grow up, I want to be just like him! :)
Dallas has inspired and given me hope to reach further into my desire and ability to be all that God has given to me to give to others in photography. My love of the art and the Lord drew me to the man of Dallas Kinney and I will ever be grateful for that. The past is the past, the present is present and the future is yet to come. May we never stop giving what the Lord had placed within each of us. Bless you Dallas and your wonderful life partner.
Jim
Dallas is a true communicator. As superb as his skills are in his photography and writing, it is the spiritual depth that he spontaneously and effortlessly communicates that is most precious to us. We treasure our friendship with the Kinney family.
Anonymous,
What is your point here? You misread the article, then you berate the author for what, exactly? Ethnicity/minority issues? I can’t see anywhere in the article where Kinney’s race or ethnicity had ANYTHING to do with the story. Also, good job criticizing the author for his story structure and grammar when you can barely put together a coherent sentence.
Maybe Strunk & White can teach you how to use a semicolon.
Moron.
I gotta ask … why is this May 7 story still up online?
Don’t you run a Living/Accent section every day? Aren’t there any later stories? Or isn’t there staff enough to update the website daily?
I don’t get why your feature stories — the “want to read” that brings in all types of eyeballs — sit here for almost a month. Particularly when they weren’t great feature stories to begin with.
I also wonder why your Opinion online pages feature the Monday columnist several days later. Don’t you run an editorial column daily in the hard copy? Don’t you understand your website news needs to be *better* or faster with the new content than even the daily paper?
You neglect your online website — updating it rarely or erratically — at your own future peril. Don’t you get that? More younger people read here, not online. But how much will they be encouraged to come, if the stories here are stale?
To read the comments? To vote for the best reader comment of the week? That’s going to keep people coming here to read, or fresh daily content? At least think about it?
i think it was as true as they get and nicely written..Tells the true story as how they lied sad as it may be
i think it was as true as they get and nicely written..Tells the true story as how they lived sad as it may be