When St. Louis American photojournalist Wiley Price picked up the phone in 2015, and heard a woman telling him a photo he took had been selected for the new Smithsonian Museum of African American History, he said, “I immediately didn’t believe her.”
Eventually, after an email from the Smithsonian, he was convinced. His photograph “Message for the Messenger,” which shows a group of AME bishops praying over then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama, was going to be in the museum.
“She said, Mr. Price, I had three calls before you and four calls after you. Nobody believes it’s the Smithsonian calling, because the Smithsonian never calls!” Price remembered.
This August, he finally got the chance to visit the museum and see his own photograph among others on the Smithsonian wall.
“It’s interesting to be in a museum, and stand back, and watch strangers that you don’t know come up and view your work,” Price said. “People kept saying, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that picture!’ And I’m just standing there, watching this.”
Eventually, he decided to let a museum-goer know he was the photographer. He saw a woman scrutinizing his photo, and even taking a picture of it on her phone.
“So I walked up, and I said, ‘Excuse me, why does this picture interest you?’” Price said. They talked, “and eventually she said, ‘Why’d you ask me that?’ and I said, ‘I’m the guy that took the picture!’”
That woman, along with several others, took pictures with Price upon discovering the celebrity in their midst.
Price’s “Message for the Messenger” photo had gone viral on the internet long before the Smithsonian called. It’s been featured on everything from coffee mugs to T-shirts. Mitt Romney, Obama’s former campaign opponent, even took a similar photo, surrounded by faith leaders, after Price’s photo of Obama became famous. A similar photo was taken recently with President Trump and clergy.
When Price took the photo back in 2008 during Obama’s historic campaign for U.S. president, he had no idea it was going to be this historic. In the final months of Obama’s first campaign for the presidency, he stopped in St. Louis to speak at the national African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church convention.
“One of the bishops told me, ‘If he comes, we want to pull him in and pray for him, and we want you to be the only photographer because we want to get a picture of it, but we don’t want it to be a media circus,’” Price said.
He went into the room with the prayer circle, but taking the photo wasn’t easy.
“We’re in the convention center, and because of the high ceilings, it was very dark,” he said. “So I said to myself, ‘I’ve got all these dark faces. I don’t want to flash this, but I have no other choice, I’ve got to flash it.’”
He set up his flash, watched by a Secret Service agent.
“So I just stepped back, and I started popping. And I was going like this the whole time,” he said, craning his neck and pretending to hold a camera over his head. “Everybody in the room is six feet tall, we’re all adults. I couldn’t even hardly see him anymore, and I was looking around like there he is, right there.”
Price worried he wouldn’t be able to get a good photo out of the event at all.
“I thought, ‘This isn’t working.’ But the minute you think that, that’s when the image comes out great.”
After realizing he got a good photo, Price knew that his picture would have power.
“What I did know was that African Americans would find this picture appealing because it’s prayer,” Price said. “If nothing else, we were born into religion. We are a religious race. With all our issues and social problems, God is always in our life.”
Now, that same photograph hangs in the Smithsonian, next to two other important photos in his life: one of Michael Brown Jr., and one of athletes doing the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics. He remembers watching that event with his father.
“I couldn’t understand why they were holding their hands up, and my father had to explain to me that that meant Black Power, and being recognized as African Americans in the sports world,” he said.
“I was so surprised but I was like, ‘Wow. I’m connected to all three of these images,’” he said. Price was surprised by the number of exhibits in the museum that also told parts of his personal story.
“I actually had to step away a couple of times,” he said. “I started tearing up, because I wished my parents had seen this.” The museum even includes an exhibit about Homer G. Phillips Hospital, where Price was born.
“I always tell people I am an authentic St. Louis African American. And people always say to me, ‘What do you mean by authentic?’”
His explanation: “I was born May 27, 1956 on a Sunday afternoon. That Sunday afternoon happened to be the day of the Annie Malone Parade, the biggest black parade in the country. So if we’re talking symbolism – I’m born in the first black hospital that was built for African-American doctors and nurses, and I’m born the day of the Annie Malone Parade!
He said his mother told him, “When they actually handed you to me, the parade was coming around the corner of the hospital.” As the doctor handed him to his mother, she could hear the band playing.
“I thought about that, and I was like, ‘I’ve come this far,’” Price said. “Life can be so interesting, and especially when you can trace things back to something that happened decades before. It’s always been that way with me. Even as I walk through the community and shoot pictures of people, I think to myself, ‘I’ve stood right here with my mother, I’ve stood right here with my father. My dad and I did this over there. I shot a picture right here.’”
