OLDER HOUSING IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY ON CHICAGO’S WEST SIDE THIS AREA IN 1973 HAD NOT QUITE RECOVERED FROM THE RIOTS AND FIRES DURING THE MID TO LATE 1960'S. ACCORDING TO THE 1970 CENSUS, 22 TO 29% OF THE RESIDENTS WERE BELOW THE POVERTY LEVEL. BLACK WEST SIDE BUSINESSMEN FORMED AN ORGANIZATION, FUNDED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, WHICH RESULTED IN AGREEMENTS WITH MAJOR NATIONAL FRANCHISES AND RESULTED IN SOME $20 MILLION IN JOBS FOR AREA CITIZENS BY 1974

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”.