Book of the Week

Black in White America
by Leonard Freed

In 1962, Leonard Freed went to Berlin to shoot the wall being erected. There he saw a black soldier standing in front of the wall, and it struck him: At home in the United States, black people were struggling for civil rights, and here in Germany, a black soldier was ready to defend the United States. This prompted a lengthy examination by Freed of the plight of black people at home in the United States. Freed traveled to New York; Washington, D.C.; and all throughout the South, capturing images of a segregated society. The photos taken at that time were published in 1968 in Black in White America.

By choosing a precise intersection between subject and time, [the photographer] may transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and the real into the surreal.

Constantine Manos