To Whom It May Concern

When I - here from Denmark - followed the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, I couldn't just sit idly by. Many young protesters focused mainly on the police killings of black people, perhaps not knowing much about the historical roots behind much of the anger today. Many books have been written about this by black authors, but to my knowledge none with pictures. All movements die out quickly, so I hope this book can be a visual addition.

Since I have 22,000 photos in my archives from 50 years of traveling in the Black community, I came up with the idea of creating a visual book as an inspiration for the movement - about the "roots of oppression" and systemic racism that I have personally witnessed since coming to America 4 years after the triumph of the Civil Rights Movement. It is my hope that the book can be published quickly enough to be useful in Trump's and Biden's divided America with its ever growing economic, social and racial inequality.

 

 

See the full book here:

Read the book online here
Flip through the book with the page index below. Press the full screen button below for the best experience. Click on the links below the interviews and lyrics to instantly see the live videos on which the text is based.

Download the book as a pdf - or as a Word file

Download the Word file with the text only
This allows you to better highlight and comment on the text.

Search online for specific pages as image files 
Quickly find and send individual pages as low-resolution web images.

 

Shorter extracts:


Foreword to the book

Life stories of:  Sharecropper Lefus Whitley   -  My girlfriend Mary   -  Virginia Pate   -  Rockefeller

Linda, the small girl with the kerose lamp  -  The gangster Alphonso   -   My ex-wife Annie

Renee Yates, naked at the crucifix


Special chapters:

The oppression of prostitutes   -   The oppression of women   -   The oppression of LGBTQ+   -

White hate: Serial murderers   -  White hate: Ku Klux Klan   -  Black resistance  

 

More about the book and my background

 
Technic details of proposed coffee table book
which I have set up in InDesign based on my old "American Pictures" layout with many newer and larger photos from my art exhibitions. Please help by suggesting other photos from here or here.


Background on myself
Many who read this know me from my previous books, exhibitions and my 7000 lectures in America and Europe, others do not.


With love
Jacob Holdt
Gernersgade 63
1319 Copenhagen
Denmark
Phone +45-20-324412
jacob@holdt.us 
Facebook.com/Jacob.Holdt 
Instagram.com/jacobholdtofficial
www.american-pictures.com