National Geographic Acknowledges Its Racist Past Coverage<br />“Through most of its history, National Geographic, in words<br />and images, reproduced a racial hierarchy with brown and black people at the bottom, and white people at the top,” Mr. Mason said in an interview on Tuesday.<br />To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It.”<br />Written by Susan Goldberg, the editor in chief, the note acknowledges<br />that “it hurts to share the appalling stories from the magazine’s past.” It includes some of the most blatant examples of racism, including a 1916 story about Australia that included the photo caption: “South Australian Blackfellows: These savages rank lowest in intelligence of all human beings.”<br />Ms. Goldberg said in an interview on Tuesday that the magazine was proud of its history of opening eyes to new places<br />and cultures, and of the way the publication has grown in recent decades.<br />Mr. Lewis praised National Geographic’s overall effort, but said he was disappointed<br />that the cover — the most recognizable image for an issue dedicated to race — was shot by a white man, Robin Hammond.<br />And that image, which persisted until the 1970s, shaped how the magazine’s readers — largely white and middle class — perceived black people, he said.<br />So they asked John Edwin Mason, a University of Virginia professor who studies the history of Africa<br />and photography, to dig through the magazine’s archives to examine its shortcomings in covering people of color in the United States and abroad.
