Matt Herron. Adventurer, explorer, champion. Who heard the call for "good trouble" and heeded it, knowing it would be neither easy nor always safe but still quite necessary.
He had stories to tell and told them well. He had that spirit of adventure, ready to meet any challenge. We didn't get to hear all the stories.
We met Matt and Jeannine Herron about a year ago, shortly after we moved across the street from them, out here in the marshland. He was always working on his glider, a flying machine folded into a slim canister-like trailer that covered the width of their house when parked along the curb. Which was whenever he wasn't flying it. But he flew it whenever he could.
We remembered our neighbor this Saturday by driving to China Camp and pulling over at a popular fishing and hangout spot, outfitted with a bench and a small tin pail labelled "put your butts here". The air was hazy, thick with brown-grey smoke from the Woodward Fire out in Pt Reyes that had been burning all week. We wore masks against the ash particulates as much as against Covid-19.
We tossed a bouquet of dahlias, sunflowers and purple sage wands into the waters of San Pablo Bay, knowing his equal affinity for water as for air, having sailed with his young family for a year and a half to Africa and back. And this was after he went to Mississippi with his cameras to photograph what became known as Freedom Summer. No lack of danger then, challenging the entrenched dulture, the authorities, the sheriffs.
His pictures of the Selma march stand as a testament to the uprisings against violent repression. Then there were the adventures with Green Peace, demanding that whaling ships obey the whaling treaties. He and Jeannine were warriors on the front lines. We were only just beginning to hear the stories -- and now his books and pictures stand as totems to a life lived challenging authority, challenging the structures of our culture. This is only a snapshot, a mere paragraph about a life as richly lived as one can imagine. I know I didn't capture it all -- but you can read more about him below - articles, discussions and books.
Books: Mississippi Eyes
The photographs and stories of five photojournalists in Mississippi documenting the fight for Civil Rights on several fronts.
A discussion of some of Matt's most well-known photos -- with images. You know some of these photos, I I'll wager. If not, now's as good a time as any to get familiar with them. Includes the distinction of who waved an American or a Confederate flag in the South, a relevant insight to today's struggles.
Two other books The Voyage of the Aquarius and the The Quilt: Stories from the Names Project, photographs by Matt Herron.
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