Fred Watkins has been a professional photographer for over four decades, traveling worldwide and photographing celebrities and heads of state from Nelson Mandela to Muhammad Ali. He is the only African American to be in the White House Press Corps covering United States Presidents from George H. W, Bush to Donald Trump. He began his career in the streets of New York as a paparazzi and worked in the Time-Life photo New York City. He worked his way up doing freelance photography for Time, Life, and People magazines.
In 1988, he began working for Ebony and Jet Magazines (Johnson Publishing Company) as a staff photographer. He was the first photographer to capture President George W. Bush in his private quarters on Air Force One. He traveled with Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush to Africa, and with Jesse Jackson all throughout Brazil. His most honored assignment was to document Nelson Mandela’s first tour of the United States after being released from prison in 1990.
From 1984 to 2024, he was Good Morning America’s freelance still photographer. His photographs appear in the Smithsonian’s African American Museum of History and Culture in Washington, DC,, the Gordon Parks Museum, the Muhammad Ali Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Bob Dylan Museum, among others. Last year, he was awarded the “Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award” by the Gordon Parks Museum in Fort Scott, Kansas. Additionally, he was recognized as Guest of Honor by photographers from around the world who came together in Selma, AL for the Photographic Nights of Selma Festival. April 6, 2024 was declared Fred Watkins Day by his home town of Greenwich, CT, and he received The Chairman’s Award from the National Black Farmers Association in October of 2023.
