A BLACK MAN WHO IS JOBLESS SITS ON THE WINDOWSILL OF A BUILDING IN A HIGH CRIME AREA ON CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE, HE HAS NOTHING TO DO AND NOWHERE TO GO, THIS SCENE CONTRASTS WITH THE PUBLICATIONS WHICH LIST THE CITY AS THE BLACK BUSINESS MECCA OF THE WORLD, IN EARLY 1975 SOME 16% OF BLACKS WERE BELIEVED TO BE OUT OF WORK DOUBLE THE RATE OF WHITE UNEMPLOYMENT, BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES IN CHICAGO IN 1970 GROSSED $332 MILLION FROM 8,750 BUSINESSES
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”.
Also appearing in the collection…
“A Black man who is jobless sits on the windowsill of a building in a high crime area…”
Artist
Date
1973–4
From
Documerica
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