RE LOG Fall 2017

8 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2017 Greenfield-Sanders “has made the world better by looking through the lens of his camera,” Head of School Penny Townsend said when he was announced as 2017 Commencement speaker in February, “using his transcendent works to shed insight into our shared humanity.” Opening minds at Ransom School When he arrived to the Ransom School in the ’60s with its aristocratic families, neckties and button-down shirts, he felt like an outsider. He rebelled against the status quo in ways both thoughtful and reckless, he recalled, protesting the Vietnam War and plotting a takeover of the school. He also took issue with Ransom’s all-white student body. As seniors, he and a friend, Ray Sadler ’70 , made an appointment to meet with the new headmaster, Robert Walker, in- tending to confront him over the issue. When they asked Walker why the school had no black students, they were told none had ever passed the school’s entrance exams. The boys boldly vowed to produce three qualified African- American students to take the exams the following Monday and, Greenfield- Sanders said, they did: “All three passed, of course, with ease.” One of those test takers, Wendell Graham ’74 , became the first African- American student to attend the Ransom School. Graham, an aspiring violinist who trained alongside Greenfield- Sanders at the Fine Arts Conservatory, went on to Columbia University and is now a Miami-Dade County Court Judge. “It was just obvious” that it was time for change,” Greenfield-Sanders said. “We were all-white students in this school. Why was that? It did not make sense to me.” Greenfield-Sanders was determined to forgo college as he pursued his dream to make movies, but a conversation with teacher Dan Leslie Bowden per- suaded him to accept an offer to attend Columbia University. “Young man, you A run-of-the-mill photo shoot with Bette Davis turned into an unexpectedly meaningful relationship when Davis criticized Greenfield-Sanders’ photographic technique, then offered to teach him the intricacies of photography if he would only drive her around Hollywood for a week. Photographs courtesy of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders