BLACK WOMAN SITS ON A PORCH SWING ON CHICAGO’S WEST SIDE AND SURVEYS HER ROSE GARDEN. SHE IS ONE OF NEARLY 1.2 MILLION OF HER RACE WHO MAKE UP MORE THAN ONE THIRD OF CHICAGO'S POPULATION. SHE LIVES IN AN AREA WHICH WAS HARD HIT BY RIOTS AND FIRES DURING THE MID AND LATE 1960'S. THE 1970 CENSUS NOTED THAT 22 TO 29% OF THE AREA'S RESIDENTS LIVED BELOW THE OFFICIAL POVERTY LEVEL

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”.