Alex Rivera, civil-rights photographer and publicist, dies at 95
http://heraldsun.southern....com/durham/4-1002729.cfm
By Matthew E. Milliken : The Herald-Sun
mmilliken@heraldsun.com
Oct 25, 2008
http://www.nccu.edu
DURHAM -- Alex Rivera, the longtime N.C. Central University publicist and renowned civil-rights photographer, died Thursday night at 95.
"This is a sad day for NCCU," Chancellor Charlie Nelms stated in a press release. "Not only was Mr. Rivera an integral part of the university's history, he made invaluable contributions to the world through his photography."
Rivera had been in declining health for months, friends and family said.
Rivera's adopted son, Robert Lawson, 68, knew Rivera for 50 years. The pair met in 1958 when Rivera was recruiting NCCU students to sweep his sidewalk and rake his lawn. The older man later taught Lawson photography and hired him at the university.
"He was a genuine person, a giant of a man," Lawson said.
"If it hadn't have been for him, I don't know where I would be. He would help anybody who looked like they wanted to help themselves. He would bend over backwards for them."
Alexander McCallister Rivera Jr. was born in 1913, the first of three children of Greensboro dentist Alexander M. Rivera and his wife, Daisy Irene Dillard Rivera. The dentist was a zealous NAACP member, according to NCCU, and his passion for civil rights activism was passed to his first-born son.
Rivera attended Howard University and worked at the Washington Tribune. In 1939, NCCU founder James Shepard, once a patient of Dr. Rivera, recruited the dentist's son to establish the news bureau at the school then known as the North Carolina College for Negroes. Rivera graduated from the Durham college in 1941.
Following service with the Navy during World War II, Rivera became a regional correspondent for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation's largest black-owned newspapers with a circulation of about 200,000. He covered Virginia and the Carolinas for the Courier and the National Negro Press Association.
In 1949, a Rivera-photographed and -written story in Ebony magazine about Durham's Parrish Street was headlined "Wall Street of Negro America," an early variation on the name by which that district came to be known: Black Wall Street.
As the Courier's Southern correspondent, Rivera won fame for his coverage of the last lynchings in South Carolina and Georgia and the school desegregation fight.
"I was fortunate to live through all of that and not be harmed in any way," Rivera told The Herald-Sun in 1996, the year Rivera's photographs were featured in "Exposures of a Movement," a locally produced PBS documentary on civil rights in the Carolinas. "I was involved in some very dangerous assignments."
Rivera photographed then-Vice President Richard Nixon on a trip to Africa. After returning, he started a Durham photography business.
Along the way, Rivera photographed such significant black Americans as opera singer Marian Anderson; tennis star Arthur Ashe; writers Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright; Thurgood Marshall, the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice; and Henry Frye, the first black to serve in the state House of Representatives in the 20th century and also the first black named to the state Supreme Court and as North Carolina's chief Supreme Court justice.
Rivera also took pictures of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and had an audience with a pope over the years.
In 1974, Rivera returned to NCCU as public relations director, a post he held until his 1993 retirement. He was one of the first black reporters to cover North Carolina governors' press conferences on a regular basis.
Gerald Ford became the only sitting U.S. president to visit NCCU on the school's 65th birthday, Founder's Day in 1975. Ford came at the invitation of Rivera, who had maintained his connection over the years with Nixon, Ford's predecessor.
When Rivera retired, Gov. Jim Hunt awarded him with the state's highest civilian honor, the Order of the Longleaf Pine.
In 1997, Rivera's former home at 1712 Fayetteville St. was leased as NCCU's first permanent alumni association headquarters. In May, that building was labeled as having statewide historic significance by a state preservation agency.
Three years ago, NCCU's sports Hall of Fame was named after Rivera, a big booster of Eagles athletics.
Rivera's work is the subject of an exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of History that will continue through February.
An avid golfer, Rivera helped integrate local golf courses, according to his family. Rivera was active in the two local Boys and Girls Clubs and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People. Rotary International and NCCU were among the organizations that honored him for service and lifetime achievements.
Many people encouraged Rivera to write a book, but he consistently refused. "He never wanted credit for whatever things that he was doing," Lawson said. "He said that he was just doing this because it was a job for him. And he wasn't thinking he was making no history."
Survivors include Rivera's son, Dr. Eric Rivera of Durham, and a sister, Raven Elliott. Rivera's second wife, Faye Faucette Rivera, died previously.
A memorial service is set for 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31, at St. Joseph's African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2521 Fayetteville St. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Alex M. and Faye F. Rivera Scholarship Fund through the NCCU Foundation Office.
© 2008 by The Durham Herald Company. All rights reserved.
Rivera captured the civil rights era
