Mark Murrmann
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Articles by Mark Murrmann
Who Has the Most to Lose if Trump Pushes Teachers Back Into the Closet? Your Child.
For the first time in nearly 10 years, Alice* didn’t spend her fall welcoming a new class of students. After leaving her role as a high school English teacher last spring, she spent back-to-school season tending to her newly launched small business in the southwestern Ohio town where she lives with her wife. She left, in large part, because of her sexuality.
The Stunning Photojournalism That Made Mother Jones
Since its founding in 1976, Mother Jones has operated on a foundational premise: Visual storytelling goes hand-in-hand with investigative reporting to expose injustice, demand accountability, and build empathy needed to evoke change. “For decades, Mother Jones has seen photography as an essential component of its reporting,” says longtime contributing photographer Ken Light.
This is what ICE descending on Minneapolis looks like Original
Even as Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has promised to deploy an even greater surge of federal agents into Minneapolis, ostensibly to investigate fraud, city residents have shown up in large numbers to express their desire for ICE to, as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said, “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.” Defying the strong resistance to ICE in the community following the tragic shooting last week of 37-year-old Renée Good, federal agents appear to have become even more...
High-profile cases to test wording of US attorney law from 2007
WASHINGTON - Eighteen years ago, amid a George W. Bush-era controversy over the firing and appointment of U.S. attorneys, then-Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a group of other senators advocated on the chamber floor for a solution: restore a 120-day cap on the executive branch's interim appointment power.
Democrats are falling in love with the Obamas all over again
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. Barack and Michelle Obama headlined day two of the Democratic National Convention, which included a roll call of states, as well as speeches by Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, and Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff. Photographer Nate Gowdy takes us to the convention floor.
Inside the DNC, day one: Photos from Chicago
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. Photographer Nate Gowdy is covering the ins and outs of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago for Mother Jones. Here is a taste of what he saw: protests outside and an electrified delegation inside.
Explosive photos of Portland amid the 2020 George Floyd protests
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. The summer of 2020 was hot, explosively so in Portland. Following the murder of George Floyd, few cities erupted as furiously and as long as Portland did. Knowing that protesters on both sides weren’t necessarily keen on the media—particularly photographers—Rian Dundon immersed himself in the thick of the action with an unobtrusive point-and-shoot digital camera.
20 striking images of Israeli democracy under siege
Monika Bauerlein, CEO Dear Reader, The next few months are make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising, and we need more online readers to pitch in than have been of late. In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we take a level-headed look at the brutal economics of journalism, why investigative reporting like you get from us matters, and why we're optimistic we can grow our base of support in a big way—starting with hitting a huge $300,000 goal in just three weeks.
Insurrection: January 6, up close and firsthand
The work of photographer Nate Gowdy should be familiar to regular Mother Jones readers, especially those who’ve followed our January 6 reporting. His black-and-white photos captured the chaos as protesters marched from the “Stop the Steal” rally to the explosive swarming of the US Capitol. Gowdy’s new book, Insurrection, is among the first photo books published to focus exclusively on that historical day.
A look back at 2021 in photos, if you can bear it
Fight disinformation. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter. Whatta year! Wooooo boy. Phew. Is it over yet? Here in the (very small, one-person) Mother Jones photo department, we naturally tend to think visually. As such, we rounded up a few dozen photos that stuck with us over the course of the year. Some events, like the January 6 Capitol riot and the California wildfires, are inherently visual and could easily fill an entire “Best Photos” post.
Here’s what to read from the left and the right
We live in a partisan age, and our news habits can reinforce our own perspectives. Consider this an effort to broaden our collective outlook with essays beyond the range of our typical selections. FROM THE LEFT From “When You Condone Chaos, You Condone the Consequences of Chaos,” by Freddie deBoer, a socialist, writing on his Substack. The context, from the author: I do want to say this.
American poverty: An artist goes in search of the "other" Central Valleys.
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. We’re driving toward Porterville, California, when Matt Black explains his attempt to escape geography. Black is a photographer, and Central Valley towns like this have long been the setting of his work, the people in them his subjects. Farmers and migrant workers. Droughts and heat waves. It’s a corner of the country he felt needed attention, the breadbasket of America. It’s his home.
Nearly 100 Confederate monuments were toppled last year. What happened to them?
Facts matter: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter. Support our nonprofit reporting. Subscribe to our print magazine. It’s been a long time since I sat in an American history class, but what I remember of my education in Jacksonville, Florida, in the 1980s and ’90s is how much of it was not fact, but myth.
Huntington Beach Has Re-Opened, But the Aftermath of the Oil Spill Is Far From Over
Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP Fight disinformation. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter. Surf’s up at Huntington Beach, 10 days after a major oil spill spoiled the waters off California’s southern coast.
Among the thugs: stunning photographs of the Capitol under siege
Fight disinformation. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter. The chaos unfolded slowly, but jolted like an earthquake. At first it was hard to believe it was actually happening, even if it seemed obvious it could happen. First we watched an indignant mob of Trump supporters, high on the president’s speech, overtake barricades surrounding the Capitol building. Then they were closer to the Capitol doors. Then inside.
At least one thing was great about 2020: these photobooks
Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters. When I sat down to write up my favorite books of the year, I realized, unexpectedly, a number of them are of work made in the past. Not re-published books, but work coming out now for the first time, photographed in the ’70s and ’80s. A sign of the times, or of my own preference in photobooks these days?
In Dawoud Bey’s Photography, the Past Isn’t Past
THIS IS BIG: ALL ONLINE DONATIONS MATCHED! A longtime friend of Mother Jones has pledged an incredibly generous gift to inspire—and double—giving from the Mother Jones community for a moment just like this. All online donations will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $94,000 total, to help us finish off our fall fundraising drive the best we can by the Wednesday, November 9 deadline.
Michael Jang offers a fresh look at a retro California
It took 40 years for Michael Jang’s photography career to take off, and to tell you the truth, he’s thrilled. “This delayed gratification thing? It couldn’t be any better,” Jang says in the kitchen of his house, which is filled with framed prints for his first retrospective show. The prints of various sizes are neatly wrapped in brown paper, stacked against each other, waiting to be taken to the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts. “This, coming when I’m almost 70, instead of peaking when at 30? Come on.
A photographer spent a decade documenting the tobacco industry’s darkest corners. The result is both stunning and disturbing.
Over the course of 10 years, Italian photographer Rocco Rorandelli traveled to nine countries active in the tobacco industry, documenting its impact on the environment and the economy, as well as on the health of smokers and workers. This massive investigative documentary project, supported in part by the Fund for Investigative Journalism, looks through the “smokescreen” of the industry, as Rorandelli puts it.
These Are Photos From the Brown v. Board Era, But Don’t Pretend School Segregation Is History
Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters. Sixty-five years ago today, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren declared that “the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place” in America’s public schools. Segregated schools were unconstitutional. Gone were the “inherently unequal” all-black schools and all-white schools. Or so we thought. Below are photos from the Brown v.
A new photo book takes you up close and personal with San Francisco's original punks
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. Long before it became a playground for budding millionaires, San Francisco was a city filled with freaks. Its punk scene, like a lot of early punk scenes, drew art students, outcasts, weirdos, and plenty of people just looking for a new kind of kick. Ruby Ray was one of those artists, but she also picked up a camera and made surrealist-inspired photos documenting the city of the time.
Forget the Neon-This New Photo Collection Shows Darkness and Decay Along America’s Highway
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. Robert Frank’s mid-1950s photographic romp around the United States—captured in his seminal book, The Americans—canonized the road trip as a photographic rite of passage. Since then, many notable photographers have taken the temperature of the country via the open road, with varying degrees of success. Among the more notable: Garry Winogrand, Stephen Shore, Lee Freidlander.
Beyond cigars and vintage cars: A new photobook shows you what Havana really looks like now
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. Havana Youth, the debut photobook by Washington, DC–based photographer Greg Kahn, shines a light on the new Havana—feisty, sexy, alive, and evolving. It’s a stark contrast to the place stuck in time, as so many Americans have come to know Cuba. Kahn reveals a vibrant city living in and for the moment.
Powerful Photos From One of Texas’ Most Historic Black Communities
When photographer Marti Corn moved to The Woodlands, Texas, in 1996, she found herself living next to the subject of what would become her first book: the town of Tamina. “Literally across the tracks” from The Woodlands, as Corn says, Tamina is a small community just north of Houston. Founded in 1871 by freed slaves, Tamina (originally known as Tammany) flourished for decades, benefiting from the logging industry and a railroad that ran from Houston to Conroe.
The Enemy in Your Pants
Army medical records dating back to the Revolutionary War show significant soldier losses due to venereal diseases. In a two-year period during the Civil War, the Union Army documented 100,000 cases of gonorrhea. During World War I, the Army lost 7 million person-days and discharged more than 10,000 men because they were ailing from sexually transmitted diseases. Once penicillin kicked in in the mid-1940s, such infections were treatable.
Alec Byrne Had Unparalleled Access to ’60s and ’70s Rock Heavyweights. His New Book Reflects How Special That Was.
My advice: This is the book to get that special person who loves both ’60s and ’70s rock and roll and photography—even if that special person is yourself. Gorgeously packaged in a case made to look like a box of Kodak photo paper, London Rock: the Unseen Archive is big and beautifully printed. It’s not too far off from looking at lovely 11 x 14 prints of these photos. And the photos! Holy smokes. Alec Byrne had access you just don’t get today.
Great Photos of High Life and Low Life in the American Desert
Three recent photo books offer very different perspectives on life in the American desert. Vacancy: The Gateway to Death Valley (Kehrer), by Pamela Littky, documents scenes in Beatty, Nevada, and Baker, California. In The Good Life: Palm Springs (Kehrer) Nancy Baron delivers on its title, giving a taste of the upper-crust desert lifestyle. Vacancy–a little shabby and weathered, yet resilient—represents what some would consider real life.
70 Years Ago Today: Anne Frank Was Captured by the Nazis
Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. Anne Frank, 1941 Anne Frank Fonds Basel/DPA/ZUMA Press On this day in 1944, German policed discovered the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family in the secret annex of the building where Otto Frank (Anne’s father) worked. Following the arrest of the Franks and two other families that were in hiding, Miep Gies collected papers and photo albums left scattered around the living quarters, including Anne’s diary.
These photos capture the bleak beauty of wildlife in captivity
After spending years photographing wildlife, French photographer Eric Pillot turned his lens on creatures living in captivity. His project In Situ captures zoo animals held in an artificial world of concrete floors and painted backgrounds—and explores how natural beauty can sometimes transcend even the bleakest surroundings. Pillot has published two books of his stark animal photos.
Susan Meiselas’ Work Has Changed How We Think About Photojournalism. Her Retrospective Actually Does It Justice.
It was fitting that not long before the opening of her major retrospective at the San Francisco MoMA this summer, Susan Meiselas was back in Nicaragua, making photos. Her coverage of the Nicaraguan revolution 40 years ago helped launch her career; now, at the opening of her exhibition in mid-July, she lamented the current state of the Central American country, once again embroiled in a violent revolution to overthrow a repressive government.
Sublime Photos of African Wildlife Roaming Their Lost Habitat
As an ardent conservationist, photographer Nick Brandt’s early work showing the majesty of the large animals that once ruled East Africa wasn’t enough. Brandt created three gorgeous photo books focused on African animals in danger of extinction: On This Earth (2005), A Shadow Falls (2009) and Across the Ravaged Land (2013). As a result of that work, what he saw, and what he learned, in 2010 he created the Big Life Foundation with conservationist Richard Bonham.
Remembering When the Ramones Were Young, Raw, and Couldn’t Take a Bad Photo
Danny Fields discovered and signed the Stooges and MC5. He worked with the Doors and rubbed elbows with the Velvet Underground. That famous John Lennon quote about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus? That was largely Danny’s doing, running Lennon’s quote in the teen magazine he edited, Datebook. He’s been in the thick of some of the headiest moments of rock ‘n’ roll, including working at the Ramones first manager from 1975 to 1977. During his time with them, he almost always had a camera.
Death by a thousand cuts: Trump, capitalism, and the demise of a knife-making town
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. The story ofWawarsing, New York, sounds a lotlike the stories of small towns across the United States. Once a proud manufacturing hub known forproducing high-quality knives in the Hudson Valley, its 150-year-old industry withered as companies were bought and sold, thensqueezed for maximum profit until they packed up and moved overseas. The economic backbone of the region was ripped out.
We went to prison to hang with the creators of one of America's top podcasts
In a shabby, low-slung bungalow on the grounds of California’s San Quentin State Prison, Adnan Khan sits nervously in front of a microphone. A slender 33-year-old with dark, slicked-back hair and skin the color of cinnamon, he’s clad in typical prison fashion—jeans, powder-blue button-down over a white T-shirt, standard-issue dark jacket.
The Photos That Helped End Child Labor in the United States
For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones' newsletters. In the early 1900s, Lewis Hine left his job as a schoolteacher to work as a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, investigating and documenting child labor in the United States. As a sociologist, Hine was an early believer in the power of photography to document work conditions and help bring about change.
Actually, the US Has a Rich Tradition of Military Parades. But Normally They’re After Military Victories and Stuff.
As has now been widely reported, in a meeting last month, President Trump told high-ranking military officials that he wanted a military parade. But over history the United States has generally left military parades as a chest-thumping show of force to less self-assured despots—and Russia. The last time the United States held a national, tanks-in-the-streets military parade was over 25 years ago, in1991, to celebrate the end of the Gulf War.
Here are 10 of the most captivating photo books of the year. Just look.
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. This past year seems like we were treated to more photo books than ever. That is, at least in part, due to crowdfunding efforts that are helping photographers defray the exorbitant cost of publishing.
We can’t stop looking at these unforgettable images of the Black Panthers
For the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, two exceptional new books take on the legacy and history of one of the most powerful and controversial community empowerment movements in America. One book offers a succinct but in-depth history of the party at its peak.
Americans spend 90 percent of their lives indoors. These photos will make you want to get outside.
The title of photographer Lucas Foglia’s third book, Human Nature (Nazraeli Press), lays bare the theme common to all his work—humans and their very complicated relationship with nature. Each project he’s photographed over the past six years explored, with growing depth, the increasingly complicated intersection of nature and us humans. It’s a thinking person’s kind of photography. Yes, the photos are beautiful and nice to look at in magazines and in galleries.
These Explosive Photos of Led Zeppelin, Stevie Nicks, and Alice Cooper Will Make You Believe in Rock’n’Roll Again
Rock photography is dead. Blame publicists. Blame managers. Blame overzealous, predatory photographers. Blame all the people who made access to musicians near impossible. As the newest book by legendary rock photographer Neal Preston proves, when it comes to the best in music photography, access is everything.
These Photos Plunge You Into the Inner Madness of Guantánamo
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. Debi Cornwall’s Welcome to Camp America: Inside Guantánamo Bay (Radius Books) is an exhaustively researched, exceptionally photographed documentation of one the most heavily guarded prisons in the world. The way in which photographs, interviews, andgovernment documents intersect and overlap in a multifacetedlayout makes the physicalbook itself becomes important to the narrative.
Walker Evans’ Photos Make Everyday America a Sight to See
Throughout the retrospective for photographer Walker Evans at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the 400 photos and pieces of art radiate with a warm sense of familiarity. Visitors may recognize specific, iconic images, but the feeling also comes from Evans’ fixation on the American vernacular, a driving theme in the organization of this show.
Iconic and Unseen War Photos From Vietnam and Iraq
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. January 1965: Vietnamese and US troops rest after a tense night awaiting a Viet Cong ambush near the village of Binh Gia. Horst Faas/AP Photo For every Vietnam War image seared into our memory, there are thousands more, documenting our two-decade slog through an ultimately unwinnable conflict.
Stunning Photos of California’s Alternative-Energy Fields
When we first discussed working on a story about how California leads the pack on large-scale alternative energy projects, photographer Jamey Stillings immediately came to mind. Stillings began photographing the Ivanpah Solar project in October 2010, with a flyover of the the Mojave Desert. He photographed the land that would be transformed into the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the largest solar plant in the world.
The New York Public Library Just Unleashed 180,000 Free Images. We Can’t Stop Looking at Them.
The New York Public Library just digitized and made available more than 180,000 high-resolution items, which the public can download for free. The images come from pieces in the library’s collection that have fallen out of copyright or are otherwise in the public domain. This includes botanical illustrations, ancient texts, historical maps—including the incredible Green Book collection of travel guides for African American travelers in the mid-1900s.
PHOTOS: Occupying Bank of America in SF
When I heard the helicopter, I knew something was up. Living in downtown Oakland, I’ve come to learn the dull thumping of helicopter rotors means there’s probably Occupy action not far away. Like any other day, I was walking around the Financial District in downtown San Francisco on my lunch break—shooting pictures, being indecisive about where to eat. I heard the helicopter before I could see it.
Eugene Richards Is the Photographer America Needs Now
Eugene Richards’ impact on photojournalism can’t be overerstated. Richards’ work inspired a generation of photographers—including this one—to pick up a camera and document the lives of those who slip through the cracks of society. Unflinching in tough situations—from photographing his own wife’s death to documenting users deep in the heart of a drug den—Richards has been able to bring viewers face to face with a life many don’t know or don’t want to acknowledge.
60 Years Ago the Supreme Court Told Schools to Desegregate. Here’s How Fast We’re Backsliding.
Sixty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The changes required by Brown v. Board of Education decision were not immediate, but they were profound and lasting. Today, schools in the South are the least segregated for black students in the nation. Of course, that doesn’t tell the whole story. In honor of the Brown anniversary, UCLA’s Civil Rights Project released a report that analyzes the progress of desegregation since 1954.
White People, Please Stop Asking People of Color Dumb Questions
Scaachi Koul's writing has it all—a gut-busting sense of humor, clear-eyed honesty, and striking introspection that she jokes is a symptom of narcissism.
This climate blogger's bookshelf is heating up fast
We asked a range of authors, artists, and poets to name books that bring solace or understanding in this age of rancor. Two dozen or so responded. Here are picks from the climate change expert, editor, and blogger extraordinaire Joe Romm. Latest book: Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know Also known for: Founding and editing of ClimateProgress.org Reading recommendations: As a blogger, I am drawn toward collections of short essays.
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