WEEKLY DISCUSSION #21 Elliott Erwitt "Segregated Water Fountains"

<p><br>

</p>

<p >This week celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The struggle for blacks under Jim Crow was well documented photographically. There were thousands of poignant and often horrific images shot by photojournalists which revealed the racial based injustice in our land. </p>

<p > Many of these images helped sway public opinion too. The camera became a tool fighting racism. Photos of blacks being sprayed with fire hoses, beaten with clubs and having dogs sicced on them only served to make those doing the beating look barbaric. </p>

<p >For this week’s discussion I chose a simple image shot by one of the masters of “street and human condition” shooters, Elliott Erwitt. To me his images always tend to have humor or irony in them. This picture is only a black and white image of a man getting a drink of water. But on many levels this photograph is quite telling.<br /> </p>

<p>http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/2007/09/05/segregated-water-fountains-1950/</p>

<p>On first impression (first time I have seen the image), the communicative aspects to me are<br /> - the difference in quality of the two fountains, one ancient and grubby, the other modern if not very beautiful<br /> - the same water and same delivery pipes to the two ethnic groups!<br /> - the unlevelled point of view (tilting floor), perhaps symbolic of the social disequilibrium<br /> - the way the black american gentleman is looking to the left, possibly at the other fountain?<br /> Not a work of fine art photography, but revealing photojournalism at its best. <br /> Such images are a reminder that good constitutional intentions aside (and this is true for many countries, not just the USA), not everyone (then and now) is considered equal.<br /> Thanks to noble photographers, the image remains forever as a reminder.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>The Erwitt pages of the Magnum website accommodate 5173 images, which makes choosing one VERY hard! Purely personally, my first thought on hearing his name is of this picture of the couple in the rear view mirror:<br>

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2K1HRGWPFO02<br>

or this of the legs and the dog:<br>

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2K1HRGT36T3<br>

Photographically I do not think the picture of the water fountain is particularly strong - without the guy on the right it would have been even more obvious that the level of equipment for the "colored" people's fountain is inferior, indicating institutionalized racism, but even so the pic has great documentary value, both at the time it was taken as part of the civil rights battle and now as a reminder of how things were barely 50 years ago. To be honest, the size, variety and power of Erwitt's work defy criticism - the guy is simply a legend.</p>

<p>The image without the guy on the right also exists: http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&STID=2K7O3RHKDVNX "Separate but equal" certainly doesn't apply here - it actually appears as if the "white" is actually drawing water from a cooler whereas the "Colored" most certainly does not.</p>

<p>Great choice of photographer. A Russian jew who’s first language was Italian and who immigrated to the US with his parents - and who’s favorite photographer was Cartier-Bresson. A photographer who made hundreds of iconic photos with his “Segregated water” maybe one of his most known. </p>

<p>Humor seems to be his main tool when shooting street photography. Even the title makes you smile: how do you segregate fluids coming from the same source ? and where do “black” people go (African Americans, they are called now a days, if I understand right ) if you have the choice between “white” and “colored” - in a black and white photo!! The serious question hidden behind it all, I leave for Americans to discuss !</p>

I believe I had seen the photo of the two water fountains by themselves without the man drinking. To me that was more effective and thought provoking. Showing the man at his designated fountain gives the impression that he accepts the situation as perfectly normal.

<p>The man's looking at the "whites" drinking fountain almost begs for our contemplation why he's looking at it. My guess (only a guess) is that he's hot, and his "colored" water is not refrigerated like the water in the "whites" fountain.</p>

<p>In the early fifties in a Spartanburg, South Carolina store, I had seen an African-American mother with a young child turned away from a "whites only" water cooler on a very hot day--there was only one water cooler, and the child was thus denied a drink. I could not have been more than seven years old at the time, possibly younger, indicating to me now that what I saw occurred in the summer of 1950, 1951, or 1952.</p>

<p>We moved to Akron, Ohio in May, 1953 and then later returned to South Carolina. I then saw this kind of setup in the same store--"separate but [so-called] equal." The same water cooler (still looking relatively new) was there for whites, and the simple ceramic bowl similar to that in the photo had been begrudgingly added for African-Americans. The water was straight out of the tap, uncooled. I really don't remember the sign--everyone knew his or her place.</p>

<p>I find the picture quite powerful, and I always have. I don't know how much of the emotional impact for me is a result of what I had seen personally. South Carolina lagged behind North Carolina on most issues most of the time (still does), and it did not even desegregate its schools until 1970-sixteen years after <em>Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas</em> (1954). North Carolina was always a notch or two ahead--but sometimes that was not very much ahead, as seen in the photo.</p>

<p>The entire South as I recall it from my earliest years was a racist hell-hole, and so I find this image very accurate and effective as social documentary. Even the angle of the shot with the man in it shows him appearing lower than he might have if he had been included in the shot with only the two water fountains, which was shot at a slightly different angle.</p>

<p>Anders, I see no humor here. There was no humor on either side of the racial divide on such issues. It was grim social and psychological warfare, and it was brutal to African-Americans. The entire South still suffers as a result of such nonsense.</p>

<p>Television cameras made the entire Civil Rights struggle possible. I hate to think what might have happened if the South had not been publicly shamed as a result of the photography that documented the unmitigated horror of those years--horror that has not really completely ended. When I entered my sixties, I started teaching at an African-American college here in Salisbury, North Carolina. The stories my students told me were absolutely horrifying. Some of the racist nonsense is almost impossible to document photographically, but it is still here in hiring practices and other instances where persons of different racial backgrounds are likely to be found together--or not, as can be shown in housing patterns in some neighborhoods.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Lannie, I'm a bit younger than you and grew up in Texas. I was quite young when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, and the "white" vs. "colored" drinking fountains aren't anything I remember. I do remember LBJ, and my mom was an avid proponent of Johnson's Great Society movement. Some of my earliest memories were of tagging along with her with volunteer efforts to clean up and spruce up poor (mostly black) neighborhoods. I didn't know until much later that blacks were banned from museums and symphony concerts, and that she fought hard to have these policies at least partially reversed. (Although she was not able to win full access for racial minorities, she was at least able to gain them admission to balcony seating, which had previously gone unused.)</p>

<p>It was many years later when desegregation hit the Texas public schools, and that's when I learned something about NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). My mom, once a champion of racial equality, did not want HER child going to a racially integrated school. Still, it happened. I think we were all pretty miserable campers -- even the racial minorities. It took us quite a long time to learn to learn to coexist with one another. But we did.</p>

<p>What's more, I think certain parts of the South, at least certain parts of Texas, maybe especially in small-town settings) really did become socially integrated because of their large minority representations. Racial friction seemed to be a distant memory during my early adult years in Texas, until I moved up north. In many parts of the north, there are very few racial minorities. For instance, there were TWO African American students in my children's elementary school, and they were sisters. It is there that my ex and I experienced racial discrimination for the first time in our married lives -- when we were denied the opportunity to buy a home because the realtor refused to accept a full-price contract from us (as we were of mixed race).</p>

<p>My children, who look Middle Eastern, have also experienced quite a lot of racial bullying since 9-11. I don't think they would have experienced this sort of treatment in Texas, where I think it would be assumed they were Latino.</p>

<p>We have quite a lot more growing ahead of us, but I think we made a quantum leap when we elected our first African American president -- and even re-elected him. I could not have been a prouder American.</p>

<p>Complaints have been made that I stray off topic. So here's one contribution on the edge of the topic: Americans who were around in the 1970's should try to find re-runs of the TV show, "All in the Family." This show did a surprisingly good job of documenting liberal vs. conservative views of the time and has become somewhat of a time-capsule piece. Anyone who questions just how much we've changed need only watch that show. We've come a long, long way!</p>

<p>""Anders, I see no humor here. There was no humor on either side of the racial divide on such issues. It was grim social and psychological warfare, and it was brutal to African-Americans.""<br>

<br>

Lannie, I see humor, like in so many of Erwitt's master shots. Maybe it is the humoristic side of the "segregated water" image that communicate best the absurdity of racism. Racism itself is far from being laughing matter; that's why humor can be a powerful arm for denouncing it.</p>

<p>Well, Anders, if you see humor, you see humor. I didn't mean to sound as if I were condemning you. Because of the social context and my own experiences (losing a lot of black friends when we moved back to the South), the whole issue is not only very explosive. It hurts--and I know that it hurts much worst for those of African-American descent.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Sarah, I wish that I had those reruns on a DVD! "All in the Family" was so hilarious and yet so telling. Speaking of family, my father was a gentle soul, but at times he could sound just like Archie Bunker, at which point our jaws would drop and we would just look at him, uncomprehending. I think that he must have heard about Sherman's March one time too many to be objective about racial issues. My mother was perhaps more like yours in that she always taught me to be kind and sensitive about such things. Then one day she got back from the grocery store, in quite a state. I asked what was wrong and she said. "I was going through the grocery store and <em>this colored woman just pushed her cart right out in front of mine!"</em><br /> <br /> I just burst out laughing. I didn't know that she had it in her, but, alas, she did.</p>

<p>One last thing, Sarah: I'm not sure how far we've come! I was standing down at the Salisbury railroad station a few years back, camera in hand, and leaning up against a metal fence in front of the passenger platform. A local woman came by and we struck up a conversation, which soon turned to race. She was getting worse and worse and worse. Finally, I said, "I teach at Livingstone College [the local African-American institution]." Suddenly she seemed to stop breathing, and I thought that she was going to suck all the blood from the two lines that had been her lips, and her eyes were wide with astonishment, her head cocked back now as if I had slapped her in the teeth.</p>

<p>I don't think that anything else was said.</p>

<p>I don't remember if I got any pictures that day, but I sure missed that one.</p>

<p>I hope her daughter marries a black guy.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>The photo with the black man has more impact than the one with plain water fountains. Growing up in NYC, The Bronx, I never saw this kind of stuff. There were no black and white separated toilets or fountains although there were black and white neighborhoods. Still are. (as well as latino, Arab, Afghan, Asian, etc.) Although I lived in a mainly white neighborhood, and there were a few black students, the issue of race just never came up until it became a national issue in the 50's and 60's. Before that, I never thought about it one way or the other. It just wasn't on the social radar screen where I grew up at the time. But during the freedom marches that occurred in the South, seeing images like this for the first time were really amazing and embarrassing. </p>

<p>I love Erwitt, and I like this picture. With or without the black dude, it is a pretty effective (and, yes, amusing) comment on "separate but equal". I can remember humor in the civil rights movement, from both black and white participants. Obviously, it was also deadly serious.</p>

<p>I appreciate this image very much. Like Riis and other pioneering sociologists/photographers, it makes a powerful point, especially to those who grew up outside the area and didn't/couldn't think or appreciate what it was really like.</p>

<p>I drove (for reasons having nothing to do with civil rights) more than 20,000 miles in the American Southeast in the summer of 1965, zigzagging back and forth. I only saw and heard local Southern news and had no idea what was going on only a few miles from where I had been.<br>

In numerous places where I traveled, the signs had been taken down on the separate restrooms and water fountains, etc., but a black man had to be very careful not to use the 'former' white facility.</p>

<p>Steve thank you for introducing me to the name of the photographer who made one of my favorite pictures: <a href="http://dreamdogsart.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c192953ef0120a67c9479970c-pi">http://dreamdogsart.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c192953ef0120a67c9479970c-pi</a> , and for today's weekly discussion image.</p>

<p>The picture is from a way of life that thankfully no longer exists and I have few memories from that era when as a small child I spent some summers in rural Alabama. As I got older on my visits I believe these practices had ended. But I wanted to add here a memory of my mother's.</p>

<p>As a young woman, on a visit South, she took the Greyhound bus from Alabama to Florida. She said that the African American women on the bus were not permitted to use the bathroom, were in discomfort and had to wait a long time until they finally stopped the bus so that the African American women could relieve themselves in a field by the side of the road. My mother, in telling the story, was still angered to tears by it. She said that she spoke with them about the indignity, spoke woman to woman with them about the shame she felt that they could be subjected to such a thing. We I think felt shame as a nation that such a way of life could exist.</p>

<p>I am a child of the 1960's from Georgia. I agree with Sarah that we have come a long way, but we still have far to go. <br>

This is a powerful photo and a powerful subject. There are things I remember from childhood, some of the memories vague, some more distinct that give me chills still today. I am sad to say that there is still a racial divide among much of our world. It may be more subtle, but it is just as damaging to <em>all</em> of us.<br>

The recent book turned movie <em>THE HELP </em>was an especially impactful depiction of things as I remember them. I <em>was</em> that little girl in the movie: "You're my <em>real </em>Mama, Abbie". I remember seeing it with my husband who is from Michigan and watching his jaw drop uncomprehendingly as I sobbed through much of it.<br>

Yes, photos can impact our world.<br>

Thanks for the link. Much of Erwitt's work is humorous and I look forward to exploring the linked site in more detail.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>My uncle was a decorated Marine in WW2. At the wars end he was stateside traveling by train from NY to NC to get discharged from the service. Along the way he was playing cards and swapping tales with several other servicemen. One of whom was a black sailor that had lost a leg to a torpedo attack in the Pacific.</p>

<p>When the train arrived at the Mason-Dixon Line the conductor came through ordering all the blacks to the "combine" car. When my uncle and another Marine intervened on behalf of the crippled sailor. The conductor told them he would throw them all off the train if they didn't like the "law of the land".<br>

<br /> My uncle told me years later that he never forgot this incident. That sailor lost his leg to help a nation that treated him like a 2nd class nobody. The sailor probably forgot this an hour later as this was the world he lived in at that time.</p>

<p>This picture shows a meek, furtive, timid, voiceless, <em>powerless</em> African-American. Apparently he will be helpless until the wonderful, virtuous (white), powerful Mr. Erwitt rides to his rescue armed with moral outrage via his camera.</p>

<p>It was not a meek, furtive, timid, voiceless, powerless African American that fought for civil rights, that forced change in America. Quite the contrary. And while sympathetic whites such as Erwitt certainly contributed to the movement, I find this picture a gross distortion of the <em>relative</em> importance of the contribution of white sympathizers, particularly the implied weakness/powerlessness of the black man shown.</p>

<p>A couple of years ago, I saw a retrospective show of Erwitt at the International Center for Photography in NY. I came away somewhat unmoved. The one word description I'd use for most of what I saw was "shtick." The show seemed full of devices, less than subtle ones, and ones that just didn't communicate to me or express much that seemed to have depth. From fat women's legs to cute dogs to reflections in car mirrors at the beach, it seemed more about the visual pun than any particular sensibility of voice. Not that there's not a place for this and that there weren't some more interesting among them. One of the more moving shots, for me, was the one of J<a href="http://www.catherinecouturier.com/assets/images/artists/Elliott_Erwitt/photos/Elliot_Erwitt_Arlington_Kennedy.jpg">ackie and Robert Kennedy at the funeral of JFK</a>, but it still misses because, IMO, it seems more like a paparazzi shot than what someone with access, which he had, would come up with, especially a moment so grave as the one he was given. There's an awkwardness of seeming distance and just plain shattered composition that doesn't suit the moment to me at all.</p>

<p>The photo provided here relies on the message of signs and seems to have a very neutral perspective while adding very little that I find expressive or insightful. It seems an uninteresting perspective and a non-decisive moment. (And I'm not one who always needs a decisive moment and think a good narrative is often at work instead. But this photo feels less than fully realized to me in terms of what the camera is capable of.)</p>

<p>The reactions to the photo are interesting, more a tapestry (and a heartfelt one at that) of generic and personal experiences and thoughts about civil rights and years gone by than an actual discussion of the photo. In that way, this is being viewed more as a memento and snapshot. And that's probably pretty true to the Erwitt I experienced in the NY show I saw.</p>

<p><em>I find this picture a gross distortion of the relative importance of the contribution of white sympathizers, particularly the implied weakness/powerlessness of the black man shown.</em><br>

Please, if you can, tell me what would constitute an ACCURATE picture of the relative importance of the contribution of white sympathizers, particularly the implied weakness/powerlessness of the black man shown. Or, to put it another way - would it have been preferable for Erwitt NOT to take a picture, or to take a different picture, and if so, which?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The reactions to the photo are interesting, more a tapestry (and a heartfelt one at that) of generic and personal experiences and thoughts about civil rights and years gone by than an actual discussion of the photo. In that way, this is being viewed more as a memento and snapshot.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Perhaps, Fred, but perhaps the differing reactions to the photo simply show the larger context(s) of our lives. Surely the larger social context goes beyond Erwitt's corpus.</p>

<p>I have always thought that interpretation was overwhelmingly about context, and perhaps never more obviously than in this photo. One reason that I say that is that the "context" includes what we bring to the viewing of a photo. An African-American from the South is not, for example, gong to see "humor" here. Someone emotionally and experientially detached from the culture of the South during that era may see humor (as some have expressed), since the emotional punch is not "there" for them. Where is "there"? Is it in the photo itself or in the memories and total sum of life experiences which one brings to the viewing of a photo? Surely it is in the latter, if the problem of context has to be stated in such a dilemmatic fashion.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Erwitt's photographic philosophy was often "content over form". To me the man's face says many things. He is both wondering what that cool water tastes like? And why someone would conceive such a contraption to ostracize other human beings?</p>

<p>""Someone emotionally and experientially detached from the culture of the South during that era may see humor (as some have expressed), since the emotional punch is not "there" for them.""</p>

<p>Lannie if you come back to the question on "humor", then I will certainly try to correct your suggestion, that :</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>if you see humor, you must be emotionally detached"..</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p> Far from it, at least what concerns me.<br>

<em> </em><br>

I'm disgusted by racism, xenophobia and apartheid in all it forms and wherever it happens. American racism towards the black population, the African Americans, a reminiscence of the lost of slaves, is maybe among the most ugly forms of widespread and institutional racism the world has seen in recent history after the last World War. The South African apartheid regime, another example. <br>

Wherever racist segregation still shows its ugly face (black prisoner population, poverty, crime etc) it should be denounced by all means. Humor happens to be just one of the ways of denouncing inhumanity. The jewish tradition can tell much in that sense. Humor is not only a laughing matter, but can be dead serious.<br>

Erwitt mastered the art of using humor to grasp the attention of the wide public in order to transmit his often highly political and controversial messages - his dog face photos for example. This photo, "Segregated water" too.</p>

<p>The photo doesn't have the force of some others I've seen that address the same issue, but it still has important documentary value. The photos that change the direction of a war, or a famine, or the aftermath of a disaster, can have a straightforward look or a subtlety to them. To those who may have heard of segregated fountains, but were not directly exposed to them, this photo gives them a concrete look at the situation.<br>

<br />It does make one think about the absurdity and senselessness of separate facilities. In a way it is a kind of argument to absurdity.<br>

<br />I looked at both the photo with the person in it, and the one without the person. Both have their strong points, but the one without the person is probably better at illustrating that the 'colored' fountain has been placed in a corner that puts users in an uncomfortable spot - a marginalized position.</p>