Actual combat is often high on drama, short on meaning. This picture looks like a scene out of a Hollywood movie, perhaps because Hollywood takes so much inspiration from reality. But for some reason, 80 years later, it remains one of the most powerful and strongest images of war, even though it's not an image of great violence. Having been in kind of similar situations, this feels like someone else's memory of my own experience.
It's not necessarily an especially well-known picture of Danny Lyon's or an especially well-known picture of the civil rights movement. The person that showed it to me was the artist Hank Willis Thomas. I was like: 'holy shit, how did I miss this extraordinary photograph?' I was captivated by its power: the scene of this guy getting ripped in four, all the soldiers wearing gas masks, these disembodied forms. This is a part of Maryland which is still pretty economically and racially segregated in a lot of ways.
This image captures a moment that tells a larger story about the economic disparities in America, and it resonates deeply with issues that are still relevant today. It serves as a stark reminder of the struggles of those disenfranchised within the American system.
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