Black in America

Noted Magnum photographer Eli Reed’s provocative and often poignant portrait of black life in America. Eli Reed has been documenting the black experience in America from the first time he began taking pictures. Now a member of Magnum, the prestigious photojournalist’s cooperative, he is known for his unflinching coverage of events both large and small. Here we see tender moments between parents and children contrasted with the Los Angeles riots. The joy of a wedding follows the sorrow and anger at the funeral of Yusef Hawkins in Brooklyn. The deceptive innocence of rural life balances the tensions of the urban drug scene. And a 104-year-old woman contemplates her life a few pages away from the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. There is truth in Reed’s work, as well as anger, and compassion. These images communicate to us—sometimes as gently as a kiss and sometimes as cruelly as a bullet. They are part of Eli Reed’s America—and ours. 135 duotones