A Priest

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4 June 1962

Navy Chaplain Luis Padillo was giving last rites to dying soldiers as sniper fire surrounded him.  A wounded soldier pulled himself up by clinging to the priest's cassock, as bullets chewed up the concrete around them  Hector Rondon Lovera, who had to lie flat to avoid getting shot, later said that he was unsure how he managed to take this picture.  Normal Rockwell eerily used this photograph as a template for his Southern justice painting:

 “Murder in Mississippi“.

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