“I kept wondering what the story was, what wasn’t in the papers yet, what I could discover and make public with my pictures. Texas would change my life.”
– Danny Lyon on his Texas prisons stories
Shakedown, Ellis, 1968
In early 1967, Danny Lyon was allowed unfettered access to seven prisons in Texas. Free to enter the prisons at any time of the day or night, Lyon photographed men in their cells, in the fields and factories where they worked, at the cafeteria, in isolation and during shakedowns.
There were lifers here; and many other prisoners of note, not least of all Billy McCune who – while in prison – cut off his penis to become a woman. He is pictured below.
Billy McCune, Texas, Huntsville – 1968
McCune has been convicted of rape and sentenced to die in the electric chair in 1950. A song he wrote on death row caught the ear of the governor, who commuted his sentence to life in prison.
McCune had spent 18 years in prison before Lyon met him, seven of those in solitary confinement, and had faced the death sentence five times.
In 1971, McCune’s portrait was published in Lyon’s seminal book, Conversations With the Dead. The book includes many drawings made by McCune and was subtitled “Photographs of Prison Life With the Letters and Drawings of Billy McCune #12-20-54.”
“I would get as many as three envelopes a week, and sometimes only two in a month,” says Lyon of his correspondence with McCune , “but inside there was always something incredible, something beautiful, something a man had painted or written from a place where nothing should grow. And he had done this after a life of unmitigated sorrow.”
While Lyon’s prison photos are well known, what’s less reported is that he also made reel-to-reel audio recordings of his conversations with McCune in prison. Below Danny Lyon tells us the story:
Texas Prisoners in Photos: Conversations with The Dead
Ramsey Unit, Hoe squad, 1968
“The text of the book, compiled from prison records and convict writings, presents the lives of a few of these men. They are the heroes of this book. I knew each of them as well as a free man can.”
– Danny Lyons, Conversations with the Dead
The Walls Unit, Charlie Lowe’s fall partner, twenty-five years, murder, 1968
“In Texas it is very popular to speak of prison life back in the 40s and back in the 50s. Well, someday we’ll all say ‘Back in 1968…”
– Danny Lyon
Diagnostic Unit, Entering prison, life and seven years, 1968
Diagnostic Unit, Contents of arriving prisoner’s wallet, 1968
The Walls Unit, Charlie Lowe’s fall partner, twenty-five years, murder, 1968
Ferguson Unit, The cotton pickers, 1968
Pamsey Prison, Cell Block 5, Texas, 1968
Ramsey Unit, Six-wing cell block, 1968
Guns are passed to the picket tower; the line returns from work, Ferguson, 1968
Ellis Unit, Shakedown, main corridor, 1968
Cell Block 6, Ramsey, 1968
Midway, Texas, 1968
Via: Storycops. Images from his show at Howard Greenberg Gallery on East 57th St, NYC.
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