Edited by Michael Shulman, Tony Nourmand. Foreword by Eli Reed.
The definitive collection of Leonard Freed’s seminal and timely 1968 civil rights photo-essay, in a fresh and expanded edition
A Chicago Tribune 2020 holiday gift guide pick
In 1961, Leonard Freed was on assignment in Berlin. He photographed a Black soldier standing in front of the wall. The irony of this soldier defending the USA on foreign soil while Black Americans at home were fighting for their civil rights was not lost on Freed. He returned to the States in 1963 to photograph the March on Washington and began a journey to document Black communities in the North and South living within a deeply segregated and racist country.
Leonard Freed’s seminal civil rights photo essay, Black in White America, was first published in 1968. This newly expanded and redesigned edition includes unseen photographs, as well as Freed’s most iconic images and is the definitive collection of his photographs from the time. The images have never been printed in such quality before, the clarity of print serving to bring home the singular power of Freed’s talent as a documentarian.
This extraordinary work includes pivotal moments in the civil rights movement, such as the March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery marches. It is also a nuanced journey into the ordinary lives of a marginalized Black community living within a deeply divided nation. Freed was celebrated for his singular talent as a socially conscious photojournalist, and this essay conveys with power and dignity the exhausting, endless struggle of being Black in white America.
Leonard Freed (1929–2006) was an acclaimed American documentary photojournalist and member of Magnum Photos. Born and raised in working-class Brooklyn, Freed rose to prominence for his portrayal of societal and racial injustices, particularly in relation to the Black community during the American civil rights movement in the 1960s. He is also renowned for his photo-essays on the Jewish community in Amsterdam and Germany, the Yom Kippur War, Asian immigration in England, North Sea oil development, Spain after Franco and the New York police department in the 1970s, among others.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Leonard Freed: Black in White America.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Guardian
Tim Adams
A fundamental document of those years, now republished to mark another pivotal juncture in the struggle for racial justice...looking hard at the division that defined it. Some of those pictures – of a corridor of black hands reaching through prison bars, of mass rallies demanding an end to police brutality – could have been taken this summer.
Guardian
The definitive collection of Leonard Freed’s seminal civil rights photo essay, first published in 1968. On the eve of another US election, in which voting rights are under attack, it still feels sadly relevant today.
Washington Post
Kenneth Dickerman
Leonard Freed's seminal book, "Black in White America," gets revamped and republished. It's as relevant as ever.
Magnum Photos
Eli Reed
Leonard was one of the doorkeepers to the historical reality of the times. I did not see his book until a few months after my high school graduation and it was a visible truth- teller presence that opened the door to an informed reality of what was going on in the Black community.
Magnum Photos
Michael D. Shulman
The hopes, struggles, challenges, degradations, joy, and sorrow that Black people in the United States have historically faced are on full display in Freed’s work
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Featured image is reproduced from Leonard Freed: Black in White America, 1963–1965, Reel Art Press's remarkable expanded reissue of the Magnum photographer's seminal 1968 civil rights photo-essay. "Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream," Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is quoted from his speech at the 1963 March on Washington. "It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream … that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ' … that all men are created equal.' I have a dream that one day even in the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. … So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside. When we allow freedom to ring … we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, 'free at last, free at last, great God a-mighty, we are free at last.'" continue to blog
Featured image is from Leonard Freed: Black in White America, Reel Art Press’s expanded 2021 collection of the noted Magnum photographer’s 1968 civil rights photo-essay. “I believe that there is a special place in the hearts and minds of most serious documentary photographers who, at some point in their careers, want to deliver at least one photographic tome to the world at large that will make prospective viewers appreciate what they have produced,” fellow-Magnum-photographer Eli Reed writes. “Leonard made a habit of continuously delivering over and over again said tomes. This book has continued to carry the weight of excellence and resides in the brain. He has continued to be everywhere in life and this book is a gift to all who still have need of his brilliance. It informs us of the beauty inside the photographs that he captured and sits deeply inside our consciousness. Thomas Merton’s autobiographical The Seven Story Mountain (published 1948) deals not with what happens to a man, but what happens to his soul. Leonard Freed had plenty of soul to spare and it was exposed to the world through his photography, with that being very evident in this wonderful book, Black in White America. When all is said and done, I am moved to say Amen.” continue to blog
In 1961, while on assignment in Berlin, Magnum photographer Leonard Freed snapped this photograph of a Black American soldier—sent to Germany to defend his country, its alliances and its values—in front of the Berlin Wall. It was not lost on Freed that back at home, Black Americans were fighting, strenuously and visibly, to uphold their most basic civil rights. This realization would define the rest of the course of his career, and he returned home in 1963 to document what it was like to be Black in White America. His caption for this image: "We, he and I, two Americans. We meet silently and part silently. Between us, impregnable and as deadly as the wall behind him, is another wall. It is there on the trolley tracks, it crawls along the cobblestones, across frontiers and oceans, reaching back home, back into our lives and deep into our hearts: dividing us, whenever we meet. I am white and he is Black." continue to blog
This timely 1963 photograph—of Black Washington, DC-area citizens waiting in line to vote for the first time—is reproduced from Black in White America: 1963–1965, Reel Art Press's new, expanded and redesigned edition of photographer Leonard Freed's seminal 1968 civil rights photo-essay. Other photographs capture such pivotal moments in the civil rights movement as the 1963 March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery marches, in addition to ordinary scenes of bravery, fatigue, endurance and wit. In his Foreword, fellow Magnum photographer Eli Reed writes, "Leonard was one of the doorkeepers to the historical reality of the times.… The book was an honest directive that captured the realities of normal Black people. It was close to an ultimate inside view while dealing in real time seconds, minutes and hours of the highlights and difficulties day after day, well beyond belief. The photographs were a continual visual truth, leaving no doubt as to what was happening when Leonard’s camera shutter captured those moments in question." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 12.5 in. / 224 pgs / 160 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $59.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $84.95 ISBN: 9781909526778 PUBLISHER: Reel Art Press AVAILABLE: 11/17/2020 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AFR ME
Published by Reel Art Press. Edited by Michael Shulman, Tony Nourmand. Foreword by Eli Reed.
The definitive collection of Leonard Freed’s seminal and timely 1968 civil rights photo-essay, in a fresh and expanded edition
A Chicago Tribune 2020 holiday gift guide pick
In 1961, Leonard Freed was on assignment in Berlin. He photographed a Black soldier standing in front of the wall. The irony of this soldier defending the USA on foreign soil while Black Americans at home were fighting for their civil rights was not lost on Freed. He returned to the States in 1963 to photograph the March on Washington and began a journey to document Black communities in the North and South living within a deeply segregated and racist country.
Leonard Freed’s seminal civil rights photo essay, Black in White America, was first published in 1968. This newly expanded and redesigned edition includes unseen photographs, as well as Freed’s most iconic images and is the definitive collection of his photographs from the time. The images have never been printed in such quality before, the clarity of print serving to bring home the singular power of Freed’s talent as a documentarian.
This extraordinary work includes pivotal moments in the civil rights movement, such as the March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery marches. It is also a nuanced journey into the ordinary lives of a marginalized Black community living within a deeply divided nation. Freed was celebrated for his singular talent as a socially conscious photojournalist, and this essay conveys with power and dignity the exhausting, endless struggle of being Black in white America.
Leonard Freed (1929–2006) was an acclaimed American documentary photojournalist and member of Magnum Photos. Born and raised in working-class Brooklyn, Freed rose to prominence for his portrayal of societal and racial injustices, particularly in relation to the Black community during the American civil rights movement in the 1960s. He is also renowned for his photo-essays on the Jewish community in Amsterdam and Germany, the Yom Kippur War, Asian immigration in England, North Sea oil development, Spain after Franco and the New York police department in the 1970s, among others.
