BLACK FAMILY COUNT THEIR CASH IN THEIR APARTMENT IN SOUTH SIDE CHICAGO. FROM 1960 TO 1970 THE PERCENTAGE OF CHICAGO BLACKS WITH AN INCOME OF $7,000 OR MORE JUMPED FROM 26 TO 58%. MEDIAN BLACK INCOME DURING THE PERIOD INCREASED FROM $4,700 TO $7,883. BUT THE MEDIAN INCOME OF WHITES INCREASED EVEN MORE AND WIDENED THE GAP FROM $3,251 IN 1960 TO $3,603 IN 1970
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”.