The alchemy of the photograph

Abstract

This essay explores how an old snapshot of a group of friends perpetuates an idealised version of their childhood. When presented with the photograph during interview sessions, individuals expressed a longing for a racially integrated past. Posed together, seemingly relaxed and genuinely familiar with each other, the group embodied the hopes and dreams of the Civil Rights Movement. The story behind the veneer, however, is much more complicated than a cursory look at the photograph suggests. In reality, the lives of those pictured were only intermittingly joined.

Notes

[1]. My dissertation, ‘Black and White Together: Constructing Integration while Establishing de facto Segregation’ (Yale University, 2008) is a sociological study of Evanston, Illinois, an affluent suburb north of Chicago that was integrating in the 1960s. The project, a collective biography of a group of young people who were friends and ‘black and white’ together 35 years ago, contributes to a more diverse historical record of race composition in suburban America. By focusing on the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of mid-twentieth-century integration efforts, my research demonstrates how civil rights initiatives subtly incorporated the very forces of social division they claimed to eradicate. Coexisting within a structure of inequality, both blacks and whites understood the place in which they lived as being integrated, though not exactly egalitarian. My central argument is that segregation facilitated these misperceptions. Projecting integration while maintaining de facto segregation was the paradox inherent in both the city's traditional history and the life stories of my informants.

[2]. In 1968, track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos made the black power salute during the medal ceremony at the summer Olympics in Mexico City.

[3]. See Issac Julien's documentary, Badasssss Cinema: A Bold Look at '70s Blaxploitation Films (Minerva Pictures Production, 2002).