BLACK OWNED BUSINESS ON CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE. THE CITY IS BELIEVED TO BE THE BLACK BUSINESS CAPITAL OF THE UNITED STATES CENSUS FIGURES FOR 1970 SHOWED THERE WERE 8,747 BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES IN THE CITY THAT GROSSED MORE THAN $332 MILLION. IN 1972 THERE WERE 11 BLACK OWNED FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS THAT TOTALED ASSETS OF $254.9 MILLION. BLACK ENTERPRISES MAGAZINE REPORTED IN 1973 THAT CHICAGO HAD 14 OF THE TOP 100 BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES, ONE MORE THAN NEW YORK

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”.