Week of Sept. 24-30

September 24

MILES DAVIS

1957—President Dwight Eisenhower orders federal troops into Little Rock, Ark., to prevent angry Whites from interfering with the integration of the city’s Central High School by nine Black students. The confrontation was one of the most dramatic during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. Governor Orval Faubus had vowed to go to jail to block the court ordered desegregation of the school claiming that Whites would be destroyed if they integrated with Blacks. But the confrontation settled the issue of whether states had to obey orders issued by federal courts.

by Adrian Sainz

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP)— Civil Rights Movement veterans are struggling to explain the motives of a revered photographer recently unmasked as an FBI informant who spied on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others even as he captured their most intimate moments. His children don’t believe it’s true.

VOW TO CLEAR FATHER’S NAME—Andrew Withers, from left, Frances Williams and Rosalind Withers-Guzman, all children of photographer Ernest Withers, react to a story about their father being an FBI informant during the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tenn., Sept. 16.

This was to have been the season to honor the late Ernest C. Withers for his historic work, with his photos displayed at a museum bearing his name.

All that has been overshadowed by The Commercial Appeal newspaper revealing he was an informant who regularly tipped authorities about civil rights leaders, many of whom trusted him so completely that he was allowed to sit in on their most sensitive meetings.

by Errin Haines

ATLANTA (AP)--Two men have filed a lawsuit accusing Bishop Eddie Long of exploiting his role as pastor of an Atlanta-area megachurch to coerce them into sexual relationships when they were young members of his congregation.

In this Jan. 18 2007 file photo, Bishop Eddie Long, of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, in Lithonia, Ga., gestures during an interview in Lithonia.

Lawyers for the men, now 20 and 21, say they filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in DeKalb County Court. The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they were victims of sexual impropriety.

Craig Gillen, Long's attorney, said Tuesday the pastor "categorically denies the allegations."

NEW YORK (AP)—Taraji P. Henson agrees that minorities were not represented enough at the Emmys—and there are too few working in Hollywood.

Henson says “there were several times when I didn’t even want to watch the Emmys because I mean, who am I looking at?”

LEADING LADY—Actress Taraji P. Henson poses for a photograph on the red carpet for the screening of “Peep World” during the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival Sept. 15.

Henson made the comments when asked on her thoughts about fellow actress Regina King’s Sept. 3 blog post for the Huffington Post.