“A time of grief: ‘Tell the truth!’”: May 1980 Gwangju as seen through lens of Rev. Charles Huntley

Posted on : 2022-05-18 17:21 KST Modified on : 2022-05-18 17:21 KST
While working as the chaplain of a hospital in the city, Rev. Huntley began to document the May 18 Democratization Movement and its brutal suppression by the military – ultimately clandestinely passing along his photos to the US
A US Peace Corps volunteer gives blood at the Kwangju Christian Hospital during the uprising of May 1980. Local residents flocked to the hospital to donate blood after troops fired on crowds in Gwangju on May 21 of that year.
A US Peace Corps volunteer gives blood at the Kwangju Christian Hospital during the uprising of May 1980. Local residents flocked to the hospital to donate blood after troops fired on crowds in Gwangju on May 21 of that year.

Owing to their grisly nature, photographs showing the body of reservist Kim Hyeong-gwan (b. 1959) — which had been taken to Kwangju Christian Hospital after he was fatally shot on May 21, 1980 — have only been printed in photography collections dedicated to the events of the Gwangju Democratization Movement in 1980.

Taken by the late minister Rev. Charles Betts Huntley (1936–2017, Korean name Heo Cheol-seon), the photographs were only able to make it out of Gwangju thanks to the courage and wisdom displayed by a handful of people in the dark days of the Chun Doo-hwan military regime.

A vehicle driven by the Gwangju citizen militia sits atop a hill, with the city center visible in the background.
A vehicle driven by the Gwangju citizen militia sits atop a hill, with the city center visible in the background.

The May 18 Democratic Uprising Archives explained Monday that it was currently holding 186 photographs, 69 film negatives, and 57 slides showing the horrors of the massacre, which were taken by Huntley while he was working as a chaplain at Kwangju Christian Hospital.

After arriving in South Korea in 1965 as a missionary with the Presbyterian Church in the United States, Huntley worked as a chaplain at Kwangju Christian Hospital and gave lectures on counseling at Honam Theological Seminary.

The events of May 1980 would end up changing his life. Shocked to see victims arriving at the hospital with wounds from being shot or stabbed with bayonets by soldiers, Huntley began keeping a record of what he encountered.

Joining Huntley in capturing the situation with his lens was the late Kim Yeong-bok, a photographer and owner of the Yangrim Photography Studio, who was in charge of taking medical research photographs for the hospital.

To duck surveillance, Huntley set up a darkroom in the basement of his home, where he developed hundreds of images. On the back of one of his May 1980 prints acquired by the Hankyoreh, a message he wrote in black ballpoint pen reads, “A time of grief: ‘Tell the truth!’”

Rev. Huntley’s inscription on the back of a photo
Rev. Huntley’s inscription on the back of a photo
The late Rev. Huntley and his wife, Martha (Hankyoreh file photo)
The late Rev. Huntley and his wife, Martha (Hankyoreh file photo)

Huntley passed the photographs along to the head of the hospital’s nursing department (and later director of the May Mothers House) Ahn Seong-rye. They subsequently arrived in the US thanks to the efforts of the writer and dismissed former Dong-A Ilbo journalist Lee Tae-ho, 78, and Young Christian Workers national headquarters advising priest, Rev. Michael Bransfield.

A member of Gwangju’s citizen militia sits in a car with his carbine rifle during the Gwangju Democratization Movement of May 18, 1980.
A member of Gwangju’s citizen militia sits in a car with his carbine rifle during the Gwangju Democratization Movement of May 18, 1980.

Huntley would ultimately return to the US in 1985 when the Presbyterian Church (USA) moved to withdraw its mission from South Korea.

The late photographer Kim Yeong-bok played a major role in Huntley’s grisly photographs of the bodies being published in “A Photographic Record of the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising,” which was published in September 1987 by the Justice and Peace Committee of the Catholic Archdiocese of Gwangju.

“After hearing that the Catholic Archdiocese of Gwangju was putting together a photography collection on the events of May 18, Kim snuck the film taken at the time into the archdiocese,” Ahn Seong-rye explained in an interview with the Hankyoreh.

Huntley passed away in the US in 2017. Around a dozen of his photographs were shown at an exhibition of his images held in 2020 at the May 18 Democratic Uprising Archives.

“We’re currently exploring plans for showing all of the images taken by Rev. Huntley and Kim Yeong-bok, which provide definitive evidence of the horrors that took place in Gwangju,” said the archives’ director Hong In-hwa.

Medics tend to a wounded individual who was transferred to the Kwangju Christian Hospital during the uprising.
Medics tend to a wounded individual who was transferred to the Kwangju Christian Hospital during the uprising.
Members of the foreign press report from Kwangju Christian Hospital during the democratization movement and its bloody suppression.
Members of the foreign press report from Kwangju Christian Hospital during the democratization movement and its bloody suppression.

By Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent

Photos provided by the May 18 Democratic Uprising Archives

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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