Common Sense: A sleeping giant
Since the age of photography, the number of images that garner such a great emotional response that they result in a major policy action are very few. These are the images that stay in our minds, the photos that tear at our souls.
Often, they involve war or violence such as the planes hitting the World Trade Center; the battleships sinking at Pearl Harbor or the Kent State student in anguish over the body of a fellow student killed by the National Guard. You do not have to have been from the era of the photo to appreciate the meaning or to understand the effect the picture had on the country and how it responded. These pictures elicit an emotional response even today.
The picture represents an event that carried great weight in our national consciousness and as such becomes a constant reminder in our crusade to “Never Forget.” These images are few and far between.