Rider holds even more keys to Schulke’s famous photos

By Olivia Tattory

Flip Schulke, one of the country’s leading photojournalists for more than 45 years, is dedicated to utilizing his influence with colleagues who were civil rights photographers to build a major repository at Rider.

Schulke was honored at the N.J. State Museum in Trenton on Thursday, Feb. 23. He hoped to bring thousands of photographs beyond the 2,500 he had already promised for a Rider archive.

“I am trying to help make Rider the No. 1 university in the nation that has the most photographs of the civil rights era,” Schulke said. “Once students get a hold of these pictures they can examine the backgrounds,” he said.

Originally from Minnesota, Schulke moved to Miami in the 1950s where his photography career began to develop. His areas of specialty include the space program, underwater photography, auto racing and the history of the Berlin Wall.

Best known for his coverage of the Southern Civil Rights Movement, Schulke documented nearly every civil rights event in the South for almost 20 years. Through his close friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Schulke was able to cover the movement through a completely different perspective than most photojournalists.

Throughout his career, Schulke has taken more than 500,000 photographs and holds the largest independent collection of civil rights photographs in the world. With images from the Civil Rights Movement exceeding 11,000 ,more than 9,500 of them have been digitally recorded to use for educational purposes.

“We [Rider] have 2,500 photos from his civil rights collection as of right now,” said Dean of Students Anthony Campbell. Campbell serves as the First Vice Chair on the New Jersey National Community Service Committee and also feels very strongly about the educational purposes surrounding Schulke’s work.

“[Schulke] is a very passionate man deeply committed to the cause of nonviolence,” Campbell said. “A living history book from civil rights to the first space shuttle to the Kennedys to even National Geographic’s spread on the Galapagos Islands.”

Schulke is completely devoted to educating youth through his photography.

“I was among the first group of college-educated journalists,” said Schulke.

A 1954 graduate of Macalester College, Schulke has been working most of his career as a freelance photographer.

“If you work as a freelance it’s a pretty good deal,” Schulke said. “I feel like I haven’t worked a day in my life.”

Schulke realizes the impact his photographs have had on the country and said he is working toward using them for educational purposes only.

After receiving an honorary doctorate from Rider in 2003, Schulke announced he would donate 2,500 of his photographs to Rider.

“[Dean] Tony Campbell was able to raise the money to get 2,500 of my 9,000 photographs on disc to the school, [including] civil rights, NASA, underwater lab and Kennedy pictures,” said Schulke.

This historical database is available to all Rider staff and students as well as researchers and scholars throughout the world. When asked what Schulke feels most strongly about regarding his photographs, Donna Schulke, Flip’s wife, said, “Flip feels very strongly about higher education, elementary through college, using photographs with strong emotions to enhance educational experiences.”
D
onna Schulke said she was very impressed with Rider’s efforts and hard work when making connections both in the community and the state of New Jersey. Schulke has also donated a number of his photographs to his alma mater, Macalester College.

“Unfortunately, Macalester has not used the photographs at all in the last few years they have had them,” Donna said.

“Macalester has 9,000 of my photographs, yet they haven’t done too much toward the displaying of them for educational purposes,” Schulke said. “Rider has paid so much attention to the depository of civil rights photographs.”

Schulke explained the importance of properly storing the photographs.

“I could bring them to the Smithsonian and they would still just be stored in boxes,” Schulke said. “These are historical pictures for our future generations to see.”