In the latest essay for his Race Stories column in The New York Times, Maurice Berger, research professor at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, shares his take on the thousands of photographs flooding out of Ferguson, Missouri. “Historically, photography was integral to the fight against racism and segregation. Leaders from Sojourner Truth to Malcolm X embraced the photograph’s potential as evidence and its ability to combat stereotypes,” writes Berger. “But sometimes, as in Ferguson, the camera has served as a more spontaneous ‘weapon of choice,’ as the photographer Gordon Parks called it, wielded by the oppressed in moments of anger, fear or frustration.”
Read “In Ferguson, Photographs as Powerful Agents” and view the photographs at The New York Times Lens blog.
Berger’s Race Stories column, which appears monthly on The New York Times website, is “a continuing exploration of the relationship of race to photographic portrayals of race.”
Tags: CADVC, CAHSS, VisualArts
