Who was Marion Butts?

Lee Marion Butts, Sr. (1924 – 2002), an African-American commercial photographer and editor of the Dallas Express, recorded events and community life in Dallas as part of a career that spanned the last half of the twentieth century.

His rich body of work documents not only segregation and civil rights, but also business, civic, religious, educational, and social life, as well as visits by national leaders and celebrity entertainers.

Mr. Butts graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas in 1943.

He learned the art and business of photography while apprenticing at the Adolphus Hotel Photo Concession Shop from 1942 to 1945, and graduated from Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, in 1949.

Mr. Butts began his career taking photographs for the Dallas Express, the Dallas Negro City Directory of 1947-48, and Applause magazine.

He received the Dallas Black Living Legend Award for Print Journalism in 1992 from the Junior Black Academy for Arts and Letters.