MINORITY YOUNGSTERS WHO GATHERED TO HAVE THEIR PICTURE TAKEN ON CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE DURING A COMMUNITY TALENT SHOW BLACKS MAKE UP OVER ONE THIRD OF THE 3.6 MILLION POPULATION IN THE CITY. CHICAGO CENSUS FIGURES FOR 1970 SHOW A SIGNIFICANT GAP IN ECONOMIC SECURITY BETWEEN BLACKS AND WHITES. ONLY 35% OF BLACK FAMILIES EARNED $10,000 TO $25,000 COMPARED TO 60% OF WHITE FAMILIES. OF FAMILIES EARNING LESS THAN $8,000 A TOTAL OF 50% WERE BLACK COMPARED TO 21% WHITE

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”.