Jenny Labalme photographed the 1982 Warren County protests as part of a documentary photography class she took when she was a student at Duke University. Shortly after graduating from Duke, she published her photos in a small book, A Road to Walk.
Jenny spent almost two decades working first as photojournalist for The North Carolina Independent (now INDY Week), and later as a journalist for the Mexico Journal (Mexico City, Mexico), The Anniston Star (Anniston, AL) and The Indianapolis Star.
She recently spent 14 years as executive director of the Indianapolis Press Club Foundation, a non-profit organization that raises and manages funds to provide journalism awards, scholarships, and paid summer internships for students at Indiana colleges and universities.
The many outlets in which Jenny’s Warren County photos have appeared include The Washington Post, National Public Radio, Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, special exhibits at Wilson Library at University of North Carolina, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency as well as numerous books, scholarly articles and a new documentary, Our Movement Starts Here produced by the University of Mississippi’s Southern Documentary Project.
Jenny also has appeared on panels to discuss the protest at Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the 2023 Women’s Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, DC and on 2024 EPA panel.
Jenny and her husband live in Indianapolis, and they have two adult children.