TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Name a noteworthy moment in Tallahassee during the Vietnam War era, and there’s a good chance FSU physics major John Buckley was there, camera in hand.

Buckley had political activism on the mind throughout his college years, using 35mm film to tell a striking story.

In one photo, FSU students rally at the Capitol steps, protesting over an international student’s arrest for disorderly conduct.

In another, legendary civil rights icon C.K. Steele speaks to a Frenchtown crowd, frustrated over the arrest of a man accused of firebombing a business.

The angst of an era captured on film, and saved for posterity by the State Archives.

Adam Watson is a photographic archivist at the archives.

“He was the photographer that took action, he showed up,” Watson said.

Watson invited WCTV into the photographic collection room at the State Archives, sifting through more than 5,000 images.

“You’re kind of right in the moment with him,” Watson said.

John Charles Buckley was born in 1945, spending his childhood years in Panama City Beach.

His youngest sister, Michelle Holder, said John was independent from the start.

“He was the oldest of five,” she said. “John worked at a grocery store. And he walked and it wasn’t any small task back then- he walked a long, long way.”

Buckley made his way to Tallahassee, enrolling at Florida State University to study physics. He found himself on a college campus at a time when America – and the world- seemed at a breaking point.

“He cared so much about a lot of things, injustice mostly,” Holder said.

At some point, Buckley picked up a camera, and made it his mission to be in the right place at the right time.

“It almost seemed like he couldn’t help himself,” Watson said. “He had to document it. And that’s what is so great about that collection for us, to be able to see, and for the future to be able to see what those times were like.”

In 1971, controversy swirled on FSU’s campus. A student activist, known as ‘Radical’ Jack Lieberman, taught a noncredit course at FSU’s Center for Participant Education on how to start a revolution in America.

Buckley was there as an on-campus hearing ended with Lieberman’s expulsion. Civil Rights Attorney Kent Spriggs was captured standing in the center of one photo showcasing the trial.

“Gives you a real window into what the time was like at that time,” Spriggs told WCTV.

Spriggs also represented two of the Quincy Five, another flashpoint moment for the Big Bend.

When five Gadsden County men were falsely accused of killing law enforcement, Buckley was there as FSU students protested outside the student union.

”Everybody kind of understood that if there was some kind of interesting political thing going on that Buckley would be there and he would be shooting,” Spriggs said.

Watson said Buckley’s wife, Pat, mentioned the camera kept him sane in those years.

“He just carried the camera around with him everywhere,” Watson said.

And yet, as the years passed, Buckley moved on. He became a chemistry teacher in Quincy, later working for the State.

His sister said he rarely if ever took any photos again.

“He wouldn’t bring it to events because he was sick of it, I guess. I don’t know,” she said.

Thousands of photos from just a few whirlwind years in Tallahassee were collecting dust.

That is until Buckley received a terminal cancer diagnosis. His wife and friends pushed for Buckley to donate his collection.

Watson visited his home in 2008. He was one of the last people to hear Buckley’s life story.

“We sat for awhile just quietly,” Watson said. “He just sort of looked out. I was trying to imagine what was going through his head.”

It was a chance to reflect on a life.

“We got the collection in October 2008, and he passed away by December of that year,” Watson said.

Buckley’s legacy now lives on in the form of thousands of photos. A true Florida Memory.

Visit the John Buckley collection online at Florida Memory, the digital home of the archives. The website hosts just a fraction of the full collection, available for viewing by request at the archives.

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