The true America

Abstract

"After the publication of his landmark 1967 book House of Bondage on the horrors of apartheid, Ernest Cole moved to New York and received a grant from the Ford Foundation to document Black communities in cities and rural areas of the United States. He released very few images from this body of work while he was alive. Thought to be lost entirely, the negatives of Cole's American pictures resurfaced in Sweden in 2017. Ernest Cole photographed extensively in New York City, documenting the lively community of Harlem, including a thrilling series of color photographs, as he turned his talent to street photography across Manhattan. In 1968 Cole traveled to Chicago, Cleveland, Memphis, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, as well as rural areas of the South, capturing the mood of different Black communities in the months leading up to and just after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This rediscovered work provides a window into American society and redefines Cole's oeuvre, presenting a fuller picture of the life and work of a man who fled South Africa and exposed life under apartheid to the world."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

An idea of exile / Raoul Peck -- Somewhat at home / Leslie M. Wilson -- When the revolution comes: the stateless Ernest Cole / James Sanders -- Harlem: a whole world in itself -- The situation in this country: travels in America -- Los Angeles -- Cleveland -- Chicago -- Rural South -- Memphis -- Atlanta -- Washington, DC -- Stranger in town: midtown Manhattan.