Stansbury Publishes Book of Exclusive Photos

Markhum L. “Mark” Stansbury Sr. captures history
in new book. Courtesy photo.

Not many photographers living today have in their possession a trove of never-before-seen historic photographs of history-makers covering more than 50 years. 

Markhum L. “Mark” Stansbury Sr. does. In his newly published book titled “Through the Lens of Mark Stansbury,” the photographer captured some of the most intriguing images of notables and some not-so-famous people from the 1960s to 2010.

Published by GrantHouse Publishers (December 2021), the 132-page hardcover book is no doubt a keepsake of black and white photographs of legendary civil rights leaders, entertainers, business magnates, sports figures, politicians, educators and more. 

Jimmy Carter, Julian Bond, Lena Horne, Lyndon B. Johnson, Marin Luther King Jr., Michael Jackson, Coach Larry Finch, Elvis Presley, Bill Clinton, Benjamin L. Hooks, The Beatles, Barack Obama, James Brown, Carla Thomas, Bair T. Hunt, and others.

Dr. Shirley Raines, president emerita of the University of Memphis (2001 to 2013), where Stansbury worked as her special assistant, joins the cadre of notables in the book as well.

“Whether on assignment or with a sense of where history was being made, Mark seized opportunities to use his camera to record history or to celebrate life…,” Raines wrote.

Stansbury noted in the book’s introduction that he used several different cameras during his career to photograph his subjects: the Yashica, a Japanese-manufactured camera; the Roliflex, a high-end camera originally manufactured by a German company; and the Nikon-F 35mm, Nikon’s first SLR camera.

No matter the brand, it was Stansbury’s critical eye and his instinct for capturing history in real time that set him apart from his contemporaries. In fact, one would need a critical eye to get the best shot.

Ekpe Obioto, a musician extraordinaire known for playing the djimbe drum and kalimba (thumb piano), is aware of Stansbury’s critical eye for taking the right shot and encouraged him to publish a book of his exclusive photos.

Stansbury made Obioto a promise during a visit to M.J. Edwards Funeral Home in 2020 to pay respect to the late Fred L. Davis, a civil rights leader, politician, founder of the first Black-owned insurance company, and their friend.

“I’m going to do it,” he told Obioto. 

Stansbury said he initially thought about publishing a book a decade ago but was super busy working at the University of Memphis, WDIA AM 1070 Radio Station, where he’s been a longtime radio personality, and LeMoyne-Owen College.

Much of what Stansbury was able to do with the camera derived from his connection to the late civil rights photojournalist Ernest C. Withers, who captured racial tumult in the South. 

Stansbury was inspired. He met Withers once as a young budding photographer but decided he’d write to the noted photojournalist to ask if he could take him under his tutelage as an apprentice.

He’d worked weekends at WDIA AM 1070, the first radio station in the country with all-black programming. In 1959, the station sent him to a journalism conference at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo.

“I always wanted to go to the University of Memphis (then-Memphis State University),” he said, “but that was never to be.”

Lincoln University was the alternative because of its journalism department. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1960 but could no longer attend the university.

“I knew I was going to drop out and I always wanted to be in college,” said Stansbury, deciding then to contact Withers, who agreed to mentor him.

“He taught me a lot. I learned how to process film in his darkroom,” he said. “When he would go out of town, I would run the office for him. When he was in town, sometimes I would go and shoot pictures for him.”

Over lunch one day, Stansbury said Withers thought of ways to get him back in school. He said Withers talked to Thaddeus Stokes, then-editor of the Tri-State Defender, as well as AC “Moohaw” Williams and Nat D. Williams, both popular radio personalities at WDIA.

“Each one of them wrote a letter on my behalf (to the president of Lane College, the Rev. Dr. Chester Arthur Kirkendoll),” said Stansbury, who would go on to matriculate at the historically black college in Jackson, TN.

While attending Lane College, Stansbury served as a photojournalist for the Tri-State Defender, Jet Magazine, and EbonyMagazine. He would go on work as a news anchor and has been a popular gospel radio personality at WDIA for more than 60 years.

“Through the Lens of Mark Stansbury” is the photographer’s contribution to photojournalism and the world at-large.

Perhaps there’s a little of Ernest C. Withers in Markhum L. “Mark” Stansbury Sr.

The book retails for $29.95. For more information or to order copies, contact the photographer at mstnsbry@gmail.comor by phone at 901-270-3780. 

There’s Help for Alcohol and Drug Addictions

 

The Rev. Dr. Jane Abraham working out of her office
in Midtown Memphis. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

Roughly 400,000 people in the state of Tennessee use or abuse alcohol or drugs, which accounts for 5 percent of the population, according to BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

The statistics are startling. Teens, young adults and seniors had reported using illicit drugs, including prescription opioids. But only a very small percentage get the treatment they need.

Memphians and others across Tennessee need not worry. There is help for addicts. The Rev. Dr. Jane Abraham and her business partner, Keith Henderson, are transforming lives.

Abraham is the CEO of The Healing Arts Research Training (HART) Center, a licensed facility for non-residential addictions treatment that addresses co-occurring disorders and offers counseling and alternative healing experiences. 

She is also the CEO of the non-profit Healing Hearts Foundation, which provides a “continuum of care process for individuals afflicted with substance abuse, mental health and/or co-occurring disorders.”  

Henderson is the clinical director of both.

“I love working with addicts,” said Abraham, whose life was reduced to tatters nearly 35 years ago when she herself grappled with alcohol and drugs. 

“I was an addict,” she acknowledged.

At that time, Abraham was living with her mother in Leland, Miss., about 140 miles south of Memphis following the U.S.-61 route. 

“I was really sick,” she said.

Her mother wouldn’t enable her and wasn’t going to watch her destroy her life. So, in 1986, she took immediate action and, without so much as a notice, kicked Abraham out the house.

She said, according to Abraham, “I didn't bring you into the world to watch you die on my couch,” after which Abraham replied: “I'll be gone the next morning.” 

Apparently, Abraham didn’t move quick enough, which elicited a sharp rebuke from her mother to leave the house immediately. 

“No ma'am, I mean right now!” Abraham recalls her mother saying. 

Abraham said she gathered her “frugal” belongings, jumped into her “rat trap car,” picked up a newspaper, and headed to the levee down in the Mississippi Delta.

The following morning, she perused the newspaper and stumbled upon an opportunity that would change her life forever.

It was a job at a treatment facility for a weekend counselor that included an apartment on the grounds. 

“I went and interviewed for it and got it,” she said. “I had no idea I was an addict [at that time]. It was only when God picked me up like a pawn on a chess board and put me in the treatment facility.”

Abraham realized she couldn’t keep drinking and drugging if she was going to work with addicts and participated in the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous in Greenville, Miss.

“My date of sobriety is April 17, 1987. That was the last time I had a drink or drugs,” she said. “That was the beginning of my change.”

That same year, Abraham met Henderson, who was recovering from addictions himself and working as well at the treatment facility.

“We started talking about what we wanted to do with our lives,” she said, and set up a 12-step Narcotics Anonymous program for addicts and the groundwork for The HART Center and the Foundation. 

“I knew that God had given me a reprieve,” said Abraham, now a trauma specialist in the field of addiction and mental health. 

With no prior college experience, Abraham earned an undergraduate degree at the University of Memphis and a master’s degree at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work. 

In 2005, she was conferred a doctorate at New Mexico Theological Seminary in Santa Fe, NM. Her mother and father were staunch Southern Baptists. “I got a taste of that,” she said. “Then I started studying religion when I was around 11 or 12.”

Now, Abraham, Henderson, and their multidisciplinary team are working “to transform lives and communities by integrating best practices in addiction and co-occurring disorders with cutting-edge holistic therapies that activate the heart’s inner guidance system.” 

“They're the Dream Team,” she said.

Henderson has extensive experience in the field of mental health and addiction as well. Along with Abraham, they work diligently to assist those who’re afflicted with addictions.

The HART Center, licensed in 2005, has contracted with Judge Tim James Dwyer’s Shelby County Drug Court since 2010. They work with non-violent adult offenders for a year to 18 months.

They provide non-residential services for substance abuse and mental health treatment, among others. 

The Healing Hearts Foundation, established in 2010, is funded by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health Substance Abuse Services and provides services for the Tennessee Department of Correction-Probation & Parole. 

“We can keep people up to a year or longer if they are determined to need those services and [if] we can get the funding for it through our contracts with the state,” Abraham said.

Services include traditional and specialized interventions and experiential intensives such as massage, personal training, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), breath, music, art, movement, and more. 

“We provide outpatient services in Tennessee only,” said Abraham, adding: “We’ve been blessed with all of these incredible people who've come to us for help.” 

For more information, logon to www.thehartcenter.org or www.healing heartsfoundation.net. Or contact the Rev. Dr. Jane Abraham for an appointment at 901-726-4213.