CONSTRUCTION WORKERS SILHOUETTED AGAINST A BRIGHT OCTOBER SUN IN SOUTH SIDE CHICAGO. SOME BLACKS CHARGE THAT AREAS OF THE NEW “LOOP“ AND ON THE SOUTH SIDE HAVE BEEN SYSTEMATICALLY VACATED AS A RESULT OF FIRES, VANDALISM OR FAILURE BY BUILDING OWNERS TO PROVIDE BASIC SERVICES TO TENANTS. AND THAT THE NEW APARTMENT UNITS ARE EXPENSIVE, APPEALING ONLY TO A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY AND ALMOST NONE OF THE AREA’S PREVIOUS RESIDENTS

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”.