While working at The Campus Digest, the Tuskegee Institute student newspaper, in the late 1960s, Chester Higgins visited the studio of photographer P.H. Polk and was struck by his powerful portraits of Black Americans made in the 1930s.
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“The countenance of the people in Polk’s pictures made me pause,” says Huggins, who hails from the small farming community of New Brockton, Alabama and recognized the archetypes immortalized in these works. “These pictures existed because Polk understood and appreciated the dignity and character of people.”
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Knowing he couldn’t afford to commission Polk to do the same for the people of New Brockton, Higgins seized upon an idea and asked if he might borrow Polk’s camera to learn how to make photographs. “He studied me, then finally said, ‘If you’re fool enough to ask me that request, I’m going to be fool enough to help you.’”
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