Commanding Photos Chronicle 20 Years Of Protests In New York
Before Trump, and before social media, resistance was a part of the fabric of American democracy.
A woman walks by a line of police during the Crown Heights race riots in Brooklyn. This was a three-day racial riot that occurred from August 19th to 21st and pitted African American and Caribbean Americans against Jewish residents. (Mark Peterson. Brooklyn, 1991.)
Donald Trump’s presidency has fueled a surge of new activists, eager to defend the rights of immigrants, Muslims, women, children, LGBTQ individuals and all who feel threatened by the current administration. Protests have sprung up in cities across the nation since his inauguration, demonstrating that power exists not just in the White House but on the streets.
Images of marches, rallies and demonstrations of all kinds are, today, relentlessly documented and shared on social media, endowing ephemeral happenings with permanent, material form. Yet long before the internet, protests were still part of the fabric of American democracy, and devoted photojournalists ensured that activist uprisings were not easily forgotten. The main difference, however, is that most of these pre-internet photos remain largely unseen.
An exhibition titled “Whose Streets? Our Streets!” on view at the Bronx Documentary Center honors the legacy of protest photography in New York, zooming in on the years between 1980 and 2000. The show, featuring the work of 37 independent photojournalists, is co-curated by Meg Handler, former photo editor of The Village Voice; historian Tamar Carroll, author of Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism; and Michael Kamber, founder of the Bronx Documentary Center (BDC).
Bensonhurst residents hold up watermelons to mock African American protestors who took to the streets of the largely Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn following the acquittal of Bensonhurst resident Keith Mondello in the shooting death of 16-year-old African American Yusef Hawkins on May 19, 1990. Hawkins, who had gone to the neighborhood to look at a used car, was met by a white mob and shot to death. (Ricky Flores, Canarsie, Brooklyn, 1990.)
Much More at the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/protest-photography-new-york_us_58b4a37be4b060480e0b1d9c?