Hargrove (Ralph) Photograph Collection PI/2010.0005
The Ralph Hargrove Photograph Collection consists of one-hundred-thirty-six black-and-white photographs of Jackson, Mississippi, from 1927 until 1984. Most of the images were taken during Hargrove's forty-year career with the Jackson Police Department. Subjects include city government buildings, police department activities, and state and national politicians. The collection features images of the rifle found at the crime scene after the murder of Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers, Jackson's first African American policemen, U.S. Senator John C. Stennis, Mississippi lieutenant governor Charles Sullivan, Alabama governor George Wallace, and a Jackson city vehicle known as "Thompson's Tank."
read more...The Ralph Hargrove Photograph Collection consists of one-hundred-thirty-six black-and-white photographs of Jackson, Mississippi, from 1927 until 1984. Most of the images were taken during Hargrove's forty-year career with the Jackson Police Department. Subjects include city government buildings, police department activities, and state and national politicians. The collection features images of the rifle found at the crime scene after the murder of Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers, Jackson's first African American policemen, U.S. Senator John C. Stennis, Mississippi lieutenant governor Charles Sullivan, Alabama governor George Wallace, and a Jackson city vehicle known as "Thompson's Tank."
Collection Description General & Tech Data Catalog Record
Biographical Information
Born in Columbus, Georgia, on December 17, 1919, Ralph Hargrove grew up in Newton, Mississippi, and began work with the Jackson Police Department in 1942 as the official police photographer. Hargrove was a graduate of the Institute of Applied Sciences in Scientific Crime Detections, and his photographic work was crucial evidence in the 1994 conviction of Byron de la Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers. Hargrove died March 16, 2008, in Jackson, survived by his wife, Theomae, and their six children: Gale, Peggy, Betty, Ralph Jr., Theomae, and Paul.
Other photographs by Ralph Hargrove are found throughout MDAH collections that document Jackson area activities and families.
Collection Description
The Hargrove (Ralph) Photograph Collection consists of one-hundred-thirty-six black-and-white photographs (five are duplicates), dating from 1927 until 1984, from the personal dark room of Ralph Hargrove, Sr.
Provenance
Mrs. Ralph Hargrove, Sr., donated the photographs to MDAH November 1, 2010. The MDAH Archives and Records Services Division's Image and Sound section scanned individual photographs in 2011 (duplicate prints were not scanned), creating preservation-quality TIFF images. These were then converted to JPEG images by the Electronic Archives section and made available online within the MDAH Electronic Archives Graphic User Interface in 2011.