Separate, But Equal: The Mississippi Photographs of Henry Clay Anderson
"I received my first camera when I was about nine years old," Anderson writes in one of the five essays accompanying this collection of his work. "I tried to catch pictures of people, cats, trees, houses, whatever was interesting to me as a little boy." After studying photography on the GI Bill, Anderson opened a studio in Greenville, Mississippi, in 1948. This slim volume presents 130 or so straightforward but affecting photos of a conservative, respectable, and separate African-American world during the Jim Crow years. Anderson documents children in their Sunday best, a postman, a majorette, a white-frocked girl posing next to a birthday cake with six candles, teenaged bathing beauties parading in front of a crowd, a group shot of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels ("The Greatest Colored Show on Earth") and weddings and funerals. The pictures show a way of life that, for obvious reasons, will not inspire nostalgia, but which certainly had its share of dignity and beauty. And to young would-be photographers, Anderson advised: "Try to show not the picture only, but show the person who had the ambition. And if he's showing it, he shows himself."Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.