Stranger With a Camera
Response by Melissa Geneser

Elizabeth Barret tell the story of the murder of Hugh O'Connor, and the lives of the Eastern Kentucky poor. Hugh O'Connor, strove to bring to all other Americans the true story, behind the poverty of their fellow neighbors. He wanted to help the coal miners lives, to give them a chance to rise out of the hole they had sunk into. A hole of poverty and shame, but they didn't want help. They thought that Hugh, was trying to have the world make fun of them, but it was the other way around. Hugh was trying to create a truthful picture of what the poverty stricken areas really look like, he was trying to show America what some of its people were facing. But what was he payed back with, he was shot and killed, just because he was trying to help those people. And the man that killed him, was free after a year. There was definite miscommunication on everyones part, the people believed that he was filming and taking pictures of them and the way they lived, so he could mock their way of life. After the machine was invented, there became less a need for workers to dig out the mines. There were many unemployed and poor people, after the machine came to Kentucky. The people were going hungry, and the education system, if you could call it that, was lacking. The people were socially behind their time, and O'Connor was wishing to show the world that their were people in their own country that needed help as well as others out side of it. I think that O'Connor believed that he could make a difference in the world, but he was restrained from succeeding to that goal.