“Uncovering the Buddhist Monk at the Center of One of the Most Significant Images of the Modern Age”

by Danny Fisher

Our friend and editor Rod Meade Sperry at Shambhala Sun Space writes about efforts to understand the famous Vietnamese Buddhist monk and self-immolator Thich Quang Duc better.

On June 11, 1963, at a busy intersection in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire to protest the government’s discrimination against the nation’s Buddhist majority.

Captured in an Associated Press photograph that was distributed worldwide, this horrific act launched a series of events resulting in the fall of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. Thich Quang Duc’s self-immolation also came to symbolize America’s unpopular involvement in Vietnam, and Malcolm Browne’s photo became an icon of the era.

Find out more here.