From Library Journal
In these two works, Mauskopf and Reed capture the black experience in late-20th-century America with powerful documentary images that will remain with the viewer long after the books are closed. Reed, the first black photographer for Magnum, has photographed all over the world but is drawn most strongly to the daily lives of blacks in America. His book is a compilation of photographs, made over the last two decades in many American cities, that contrasts pain and celebrations, riots and prayer meetings, births and funerals, black professionals and the unemployed. Parks, himself a photographer, contributes an essay that reflects on the images and the man who made them. Mauskopf presents a quieter collection of images made in one part of the South, the most isolated black communities of the Mississippi Delta, where time seems to have stopped in midcentury. The photographs are full of love, joy, and religious faith and are richly reproduced here as sheet-fed gravures. Mauskopf portrays the poorest Americans, who are nonetheless rich in family, church, and community bonds. He documents the unifying and dominant role of religion as well as the joys and sustenance provided by music, dance, romance, family life, and the land itself. These images capture a sense of place so powerfully that captions aren't necessary, though a brief and poetic essay by novelist Kenan nicely complements the photographs. Both books are recommended for all collections on black history, American studies, and photographic history and art.?Kathleen Collins, New York Transit Museum Archives, BrooklynCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Midwest Book Review
Afro-American life on the Mississippi Delta is revealed in a fine collection of documentary black and white photos which could just as easily been featured under our 'art' heading. This chronicle of the community provides powerful wordless images of the peoples and their lives. Highly recommended: an excellent visual treat.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this, his third book, documentary photographer Norman Mauskopf delves into African-American life in the Mississippi Delta. The book is a revealing chronicle of the shared rural and agricultural community that gave birth to the blues. From the cotton fields to juke-joints, revivals to front-porch get-togethers, Mauskopf's exploration of this tradition-rich culture documents the many ways in which the African-American community has drawn on the past, keeping intact its rituals and a way of life in the American southland. Mauskopf is the author of Rodeo (1985) and Dark Horses (1988). Included is an afterword by novelist Randall Kenan, author of A Visitation of Spirits and Let the Dead Bury Their Dead.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal