BCSP Notes . . .
NCCU Hall of Fame to be named for famed photojournalist
North Carolina Central University
honored photojournalist Alex Rivera with the naming of
the Alex M. Rivera Athletic Hall of Fame on
Wednesday, November 16, 2005, at 11:30 a.m. in the foyer of
the McLendon-McDougald Gymnasium.
"In our memories we hold a number of
remarkable photographs that captured the truth in the victories
and tragedies of our modern history and culture,"
said Chancellor James H. Ammons. "The men and
women who recorded those moments, sometimes at risk
to their own lives, are unseen and largely forgotten.
Naming the hall in honor of Alex Rivera seems a natural choice."
In 1939, NCCU Founder, Dr. James E. Shepard brought Rivera from Howard University where he was a student and from the Washington Tribune where he was a part time photojournalist to the Durham campus to establish the news bureau for the university.
Later, as a journalist for the Pittsburgh Courier, Rivera became famous for his coverage of the last lynchings in South Carolina and Alabama, the legal challenges to school segregation, and the aftermath of the landmark Brown v. The Topeka Board of Education decision that garnered him a Global Syndicate Award in 1955.
However, his passion was athletics and when he returned to NCCU, he photographed some of the world's greatest men in sport including basketball coach John B. McLendon whose mentor had been none other than the architect of basketball, Dr. James Naismith. McLendon had a winning collegiate coaching record of 523 wins to 165 losses and invented the full court press, the zone press, the open center offense including the "four corners," and the double-pivot.
Thanks to Rivera, images of McLendon with his players, including five-time NBA All-Star Sam Jones, have been preserved for the historical record. Similarly, Rivera captured former United States Olympic Committee President and NCCU coach and Chancellor, Dr. LeRoy T. Walker with his gold medal-winning hurdler, Lee Calhoun.
Rivera was instrumental in establishing the Athletic Hall of Fame at NCCU and managed the annual induction ceremony for 15 years. The Hall of Fame is housed in the upper corridor of McLendon-McDougald Gymnasium on Lawson Street two blocks east of Fayetteville Street and offers an impressive display of large-scale photographs from NCCU's athletic history that are predominantly the work of Rivera himself.
© 2005 Azeez Communications, Inc.