Civil rights, Christian photographer Rutledge dies

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Donald Rutledge, who won acclaim shooting photos during the civil rights movement before turning his lens toward Christian photography, has died. He was 82.

Rutledge died at his home near Richmond on Tuesday.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports (http://bit.ly/XQo9EC ) Rutledge grew up in Tennessee wanting to be a preacher. After seminary school, he instead went to work for the photojournalism agency Black Star and traveled the globe shooting photos for Life and other magazines.

It was his photos for John Howard Griffin's 1961 book "Black Like Me" about the Jim Crow-era South that garnered Rutledge national acclaim. Then in 1966, Rutledge combined his two loves and worked the next three decades as a Christian photographer for the Southern Baptist Convention's Home Missions magazine, then for the Foreign Mission Board.