A-Year-In-Photos 2020 - Part 2

(John A. Carlos II/Special to The Free Times)

On September 3 - April Jones of Pinehurst Farms

April moved to Columbia from Akron, Ohio, about 15 years ago. She came to town for an elementary school teaching position, and she chose to settle near North Main Street, where she was close to various stores including some grocery options.

But that wouldn’t remain the case. The close-by stores eventually closed, leaving the area in a bind when it came to accessing affordable food of good, fresh quality. Getting back within an easier distance of a grocery store helped push her to move to the Pinehurst Neighborhood, east of downtown. But, over the course of three years, the Piggly Wiggly on West Beltline Boulevard closed and the Save-A-Lot on Harden Street shuttered, and that area, too, became a food desert in the eyes of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Her work goes beyond the market. She regularly advocates for the neighborhood and food justice in other settings. Jones pushed for food advocacy in a digital campaign conversation with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Harrison and has participated in similar discussions with ag-related organizations.

(John A. Carlos II/Special to The Post and Courier)

On October 16 - Martha Jones wears a mask with photos of Shirley and Demetria Banister.

Hours after her only child, Demi died from COVID-19 on Sept. 7, Shirley Bannister entered a walk-in medical clinic for a test and learned she contracted the virus.

Shirley would die 20 days later from the infection that claimed her daughter and more than 3,400 other South Carolinians.

“There are times I tend to forget that this is actually real. Sometimes, we felt like they just went somewhere. They took a trip and they’re going to come back,” said Shayla Jones, Demi’s cousin and Shirley’s niece. “They took a trip, correct, but Heaven doesn’t have a return policy.”

Here is a link to the full story - at the Post and Courier

On Oct. 29 - Blythewood HS wide receiver Joshua Burrell attempts to make a catch against Rock Hill HS defensive back Brandon Worthy.

I don't like to brag or boast. But this next event marked one of the biggest moments in my career. I got the chance to work for The Associated Press, better known as The AP.

It was a bit nerve-racking being the only photographer in the room knowing that if I messed up there would be no photos from this event. When I'm working I feel a huge sense of responsibility to capture the first draft of history, It's an awesome responsibility, and when I don't take it lightly, I try to capture everything fairly and honestly.

I don't check off boxes in my life. I try not to get too high or too low in my ambitions. I continue to move forward and expand upon my photographic education, which I know will never be finished.

(John A. Carlos II/The Post And Courier via AP)

(John A. Carlos II / Special to The Post and Courier)

On the top floor of the BB&T building on Two Notch Road a portrait of Holocaust survivor Ben Stern occupies a prominent spot in the lobby of the Columbia development firm the late businessman started with his son, Bill Stern, after relocating to South Carolina following the horrors he experienced in Germany’s death camps. “I remember my father standing in front of the portrait one day — we were both leaving the office and locking it up,” said Bill Stern, who was appointed last month by President Donald Trump to serve on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. “And I said, ‘Dad, God forbid when you pass away, I’m going to be leaving this office looking at you and I’m going to talk to you’. And I’ll be damned if there hasn’t been a time when I’ve left this office that I don’t walk over to that portrait and tell him about all of the things that are going on.” Ben Stern was tattooed with the number B-3348. Every day in the camp he could smell the burning flesh of other prisoners who’d been sent to the gas chambers. His daily work in the wintertime consisted of moving a heavy steel beam from one end of the yard to another, and then back again. The frozen metal would rip the flesh off his hands. Daily meals consisted of warm water the Germans called soup and a slice of bread. When he was caught hiding some soup in his bunk, the German guards beat him unconscious with a shovel handle, he said. When he was liberated on April 30, 1945, Ben Stern weighed 87 pounds. “I’m a businessman now and I’m independent, but at no time have I taken this place, America, for granted,” he said. “I worship every day the ground I walk on and so does my wife.” Jadzia Stern, who initially hid from the Nazis in an attic trunk as the rest of her family was captured, tells similar stories in her videoed recollection of the Holocaust. After her ultimate capture and arrival at Auschwitz on a train, German soldiers snatched her sister’s baby from her arms and killed it in front of her.

A-Year-In-Photos 2020 - Part 2

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