Any community would be fortunate to have a man like Calvin Littlejohn.

He wasn't a politician, a sports idol or a celebrity.  But black communities in Fort Worth will forever be remembered accurately because of the diligence and documentation of their man behind the camera.

For half of a century, the photography of Littlejohn documented day-to-day life in black communities all across Fort Worth and, for the remainder of April, the Sam Rayburn Library in Bonham will feature these historic photographs. 

Littlejohn didn't come to Fort Worth in 1934 from his home in Arkansas to capture history, but as a skilled photographer in an era when African American communities were ignored by mainstream media, fate left it in Littlejohn's hands to document the events around him.  It is hard to say if he was driven by a sense of urgency or by sheer determination.  What is certain, however, is that if folks wanted a good photograph, whether it was for the grand opening of a washateria or of a young Thurgood Marshall speaking at a local church, they called on Calvin Littlejohn.

"You couldn't go to a black event in Ft. Worth without running into him," recalls Don Mooney, a native of Fort Worth and former North Texas e-News photojournalist. "Mr. Littlejohn was an awesome photographer as well as a pioneer."

Mooney fondly remembers Littlejohn as a friend of the family.

Countless Fort Worth families felt the same way.

Another man that is looked upon as a pioneer in his own right, journalist Bob Ray Sanders sets the scene in his book, Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White.

This was the Jim Crow era, when mainstream newspapers wouldn’t publish pictures of black citizens and white photographers wouldn’t take pictures in black schools.

In Fort Worth, Littlejohn began what would become a lifelong career of documenting the black community. And there would be nothing remotely related to the white culture’s depictions of Amos ‘n’ Andy or black kids grinning over a slice of watermelon in Littlejohn’s portrayal of his adopted home and the people he came to appreciate and love.

A tour of the current exhibit at Sam Rayburn Library and Museum will offer proof that Littlejohn was a talented studio photographer, but that was only the beginning. 

When Nat King Cole came to town, Littlejohn was there with his camera. Photographs of Jackie Robinson, the Oscar Peterson Trio, Joe Louis and Mohammed Ali await visitors to the Sam Rayburn Library.

Each snapshot captures a moment in the history of Fort Worth and a nation slowly coming to terms with equality.  Perhaps even more than images of celebrities, it will be the quiet dignity of working folks, the black middle class of Fort Worth that earned Calvin Littlejohn his own place in history.

As Sanders says best, these were the people Littlejohn came to appreciate and love.  And it shows in every photograph.