A SOUTH SIDE CHICAGO GHETTO MOTHER AND CHILD WHO LIVE IN NEARBY LOW INCOME HOUSING. THEY ARE PART OF THE 1.2 MILLION PEOPLE OF THEIR RACE WHO MAKE UP OVER ONE THIRD OF CHICAGO’S POPULATION CHICAGO AREA CENSUS FIGURES SHOW A SIGNIFICANT GAP IN ECONOMIC SECURITY BETWEEN BLACKS AND WHITES. OF FAMILIES EARNING LESS THAN $8,000 IN 1970 SOME 50% WERE BLACK COMPARED TO 21% WHITE. MEDIAN BLACK INCOME IN CHICAGO AT THAT TIME WAS 65% THAT OF THE WHITES

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”.