BLACK MOTHER AND FATHER WITH THEIR EIGHT CHILDREN IN CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE GHETTO. ALTHOUGH FIGURES IN THE 1970 CENSUS NOTE THAT NEARLY HALF OF THE NATION'S 22.7 MILLION BLACKS WERE IN MIDDLE INCOME BRACKETS, AN EQUAL NUMBER WERE TRYING TO FIND JOBS THAT PAID ENOUGH FOR THEM TO ENTER THE MIDDLE CLASS. AND THE RATE OF UNEMPLOYMENT FOR BLACKS NATIONWIDE IS BELIEVED TO BE TWICE THE NATIONAL AVERAGE. THIS FAMILY LIVES IN A TWO BEDROOM APARTMENT BECAUSE THE FATHER MAKES $7,000 PER YEAR

Featured on PDR in the collection John H. White’s Photographs of Black Chicago for DOCUMERICA (1973–74)

It’s hard not to read John H. White’s DOCUMERICA series as a love letter to Black Chicago. Whether capturing protesters or checkers players, concerts or chores, White’s work feels animated by a wonder and curiosity for the great breadth of stories and characters he encountered while exploring his adopted home city — “life”, as he put it in the captions to several of his images, “in all its seasons”.