Introduction
Experience the interview and photojournalism exhibit below, via the images and clips selected by each member of the research team.
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"They all seem to capture the aftermath or the prelude to violence"
-Derik Smith
49ers football game, San Francisco, California, 1980s
Crown Heights riot, Brooklyn, New York, 1991
Liberty City riots, Miami, Florida, 1980
"How did you come to find yourself in these places? How did you know these women?"
-Kirsti Zitar
"You look into the eyes of these kids- how can you not try to do something?"
-Eli Reed
Homeless mother with children, St. Louis, Missouri, 1987
"The thing I couldn't get over was that the white people in the area thought the black people were perfectly happy." -Eli Reed
The plight of black Americans living in fire conditions and largely ignored by white Residents, Tunica (Sugar Ditch), Mississippi, 1986
"There's too many people that don't wanna know, and that's not good enough." -Eli Reed
Sex worker trying to leave the trade, Detroit, Michigan, 1978-1980
"When I originally looked at your books and your photos, I noticed one of the most prominent themes was the element of intimacy, and in that, candidness."
-Beatrice Petropoulos-White
"The police decided that it didn't matter- he was a black boy and he was gonna be arrested and put in jail..." -Eli Reed
"He believed in the authority the right way...if you do the right things then everything will be fine- and that was, no, that didn't happen...I realized he was never going to be the same again to a certain extent because that belief thing went out the window." -Eli Reed
Groom with ring bearer, Beaufort, South Carolina, 1984
Children at play, Tunica (Sugar Ditch), Mississippi, 1986
Young boys harassing Catholic schoolgirls, Upper Manhattan, New York, 1992
Knife fight, L.A. riots, Los Angeles, California, 1992
"There's a choice of what do you want to take a picture of- what's your subject- and what do you want to exclude from the picture, which is just as relevant...?"
- Franz Mangel
"We work in little split seconds of time...you come in, you make photographs, you try to get the essence of what's going on, you know, you're going with the rhythm of what's happening, you don't want to fight that." -Eli Reed
"The biggest thing is the reason why you're there...what are you looking for? So then let it go and step inside..." -Eli Reed
"I'm looking at their eyes, I'm looking at their faces, I'm looking at their lips, I'm looking at their body movements." -Eli Reed
Benaco Refugee Camp, Tanzania, 1994
"The look in his face was the same kind of upset I had at the time. The skepticism, the upset, the anger."
-Eli Reed
"How do you get rid of the upset? Do your damn job. Make the photograph capture the feeling." -Eli Reed
Funeral of Yusef Hawkins, Brooklyn, New York, 1989
Farming family, Bastrop, northern Louisiana, 1988
Richmond, CA, 1987
War, Violence, and Genocide
Family members looking for relatives in the “Book of the Missing,” Human Rights Commission office, San Salvador, El Salvador, 1982
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and the campaign to eradicate the guinea worm, Ghana, Africa, 1989
My father, Ellis Reed Sr.