David Turnley was in Paris when he got the call. His brother Peter was in Beijing to cover the visit of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to China but was on the line with different, more exciting news. A small group of students had taken to the streets in protest in Tiananmen Square—and their numbers were swelling.
(Photographs by Peter Turnley/ Corbis, via National Geographic)
“I think something is happening here,” Peter told his brother. “You need to cover this too,” Peter urged.What had started with a handful of students “soon turned into 10,000, and a few days after that, a million,” recalls Peter, all in support of greater political and personal freedoms. The year 1989 was a time of historic change in entrenched political systems like the Soviet Union and South Africa, and the Chinese students wanted to be part of it.
David Turnley (on right) and Peter Turnley (on left) document the student movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989. |
(Photographs by Peter Turnley/ Corbis, via National Geographic)