Counts, Ira Wilmer, Jr.

▪ 2002

“Will” 

      American photographer (b. Aug. 24, 1931, Little Rock, Ark.—d. Oct. 6, 2001, Bloomington, Ind.), was on the staff of the Arkansas Democrat when he took his most famous photos, which captured the turmoil that attended the integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. In his best-known image, an African American student is being jeered as she makes her way past a white mob. Another, of a black journalist being kicked by a white man wielding a brick, was said to have led Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower to send federal troops to Little Rock. Counts went on to work for the Associated Press in Chicago and Indianapolis, Ind., and later spent 32 years (1963–95) on the faculty of Indiana University, where he developed a noted photojournalism program.

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