Leonard Freed

Magnum photographer Leonard Freed worked alongside the New York police for several years, documenting the gritty reality of life on the beat at a notorious time of soaring crime and great social unrest, with the city near bankruptcy. Of his near-decade with the police department, Freed observed that "What I saw were average people doing a sometimes boring, sometimes corrupting, sometimes dangerous and ugly and unhealthy job.” His nuanced essay has a poignancy and grace, capturing the camaraderie of officers alongside the people they are hired to protect.

Freed accompanied the NYPD on murder investigations, drug raids, public demonstrations and community outreach initiatives, as well as documenting the ordinary daily grind of the job. This reedited and redesigned take on Freed’s original 1980 book features several unseen photographs from the archive. It is a celebration of this complex and compassionate body of work, which has a social resonance and relevance in today’s climate.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, photojournalist Leonard Freed (1929–2006) 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 numerous insightful 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 his essays on the New York police department in the 1970s, among others.

In 1962, white American photojournalist Leonard Freed was on assignment in Berlin. He photographed an African American soldier standing in front of the wall. The irony of this soldier defending the US on foreign soil while African Americans at home were fighting for their civil rights resonated with Freed. On his return to the States in 1963 he photographed the march on Washington and began a journey across the United States to document the anxiety and tension within Black communities in the North and South. From 1963 to 1965, he captured the plight of African Americans and the great struggle for racial equality within a deeply segregated, racist society.
This extraordinary collection of images—from Martin Luther King, Jr. greeting an eager crowd in an open-topped car to incarcerated Black men in the Deep South and families living defiantly ordinary lives—conveys with power and dignity the exhausting, endless struggle of being Black in white America.
The photographs in this new edition have been reproduced from the original negatives and using vintage prints created by Freed’s master printer and widow, Brigitte Freed, as reference. Freed’s Black in White America series has never been published in such quality and detail before, and many images are being published for the first time. The photographs are accompanied by text from Freed’s original diaries from the time. It is published in close collaboration with the Freed Estate and features a foreword from fellow Magnum photographer Eli Reed.
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.