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Connie Taylor and three of her eight children. They live in a housing project owned by the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Understanding America’s Poverties and Drowning Mothers

Michael Harrington once wrote that one ought not to talk about “poverty” but about poverties. He meant there are so many ways of being poor that no single description or analysis can apply to them all. The same thing is true of homelessness.

Peter Marin February 11, 1992
Karabakh official and fighters Prepare to board an MI-8 helicopter from Yerevan to Karabakh.

The Fulcrum that Could Rock Russia and Iran

Photos by APF Fellow James Rupert BAKU, Azerbaijan–In the western Azerbaijani town of Agdam, Fazil Gassimov is a respected man. He is a former school director and collective farm manager who wears his 52 years, like his sweater vest and tweed jacket, with

James Rupert February 10, 1992
An evangelical priest gives a eulogy behind black trash bags containing the skeletal remains of eight people murdered in the early 1980’s during the Guatemalan army’s counter-insurgency campaign. They were among the 23 bodies unearthed by anthropologists in August in Chontala, a village in the western highlands of Guatemala.

The Suffering of Guatemala’s Indigenious People

A noticeable hush fell over the small crowd of Guatemalan indigenious people. They watched in horror as forensic anthropologist Luis Miguel Alonso painstakingly unearthed the body of a young Indian boy killed in a massacre in 1983. An evangelical priest gives a eulogy

Vince Heptig February 4, 1992
President Johnetta Cole of Spelman College in Atlanta shows off African figures at a gift shop in the Little Points section of Atlanta. She was shopping for a retirement gift for a professor in the college's art department. AP/Wide World Photos

The Future of Black Colleges and Universities

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, PA.-Strolling across Lincoln University’s bucolic campus, set in southeastern Pennsylvania roughly equidistant from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Wilmington, Delaware, tempts a visitor to populate walkways, classrooms, playing fields, and the chapel with some of its most famous alumni-Langston Hughes, the poet and

Lee Daniels November 13, 1991
The newest model of the Airbus was unveiled this fall, complete with orchestra. Photo Courtesy of Airbus Industrie

The Failed Crusade Against Airbus

George Prill liked to work on a large scale. As president of Lockheed’s international aircraft unit, he tried to make an unprecedented deal for the sale and production of L1011 jetliners with the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s. Later in the decade, he

Steven Dryden November 11, 1991
An anti-communist demonstration in the center of Dushanbe, in Central Asia. The crowd pressed close at the time of a Supreme Soviet session, which was called to discuss their demands. The demonstrators shouted "Parliament: Resign!" while Tajik militiamen kept the crowd back.

The Strange State of Soviet Central Asia

Photo by James Rupert TASHKENT, U.S.S.R.-On the night last August that masses of Muscovites undid the Bolshevik Revolution, most people here in the Soviet Union’s fourth largest city appeared not to care. On the flickering television image from Moscow, 1700 miles away, a

James Rupert November 10, 1991
The Libyan pharmaceutical plant at Rabta, shown in this satellite photo, is believed by U.S. authorities to be producing chemical weapons. The plant was built in the 1980s with the help Of German exports and expertise. When discovered, the ensuing scandal tightened German shipments of war chemicals. The plants continuation shows the ease with which chemical arsenals can be assembled through ordinary commerce. Western diplomats say a second chemical weapons production plant is in the works in the southern Libyan desert near Sabha. Photo ©1991 CNES. Provided by Spot Image Corporation

Outlawing Chemical Weapons

How intrusive searches and disposal problems are hampering talks toward an historic ban on possessing war poisons. At the sound of approaching aircraft, Farouk Abdullah, an elder in the northern Iraqi village of Ekmala, squinted up at the brightening summer sky. It was

James Borg November 10, 1991
Villagers burn a soldier’s effigy on Easter Sunday to continue to protest against the military massacre of 14 citizens of Santiago Atitlan on Dec. 2, 1990.

Aftermath of a Massacre in Guatemala

The highland village of Santiago Atitlan continues to hold monthly masses to commemorate the 14 citizens killed and 24 injured when soldiers fired into a crowd that had gathered to protest an earlier shooting of a resident by drunken soldiers. A 30-year conflict

Vince Heptig August 25, 1991
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Tropic of Illusions

Takashi Shida bent down in a field of soy beans, briefly disappearing in the sea of pea green stalks that swelled off toward the flat horizon. Surfacing again, he brandished a plant better than a yard long. He grasped it firmly and, as

Mac Margolis August 19, 1991
Marilyn Hamilton and Bill Hamilton, her uncle, at his fruit brokerage warehouse.

Re-Inventing the Wheel

The story of the disability rights movement could be written about Marilyn Hamilton’s impatience. It would start the summer day in 1978 when Hamilton crashed her hang glider nose down into the side of a California Sierra mountain. Her spinal cord was bruised

Joseph Shapiro August 19, 1991
The new M40 gas mask has a filter canister that can be used on either side, to accommodate left and right-handed soldiers when firing a weapon. Photo Courtesy Of The Department Of The Army.

The World’s Armies Agree: Gas Masks Are Here to Stay

WASHINGTON-For Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, it would have been a hellish dream come true-allied ground troops pinned down by Iraqi forces and pummeled with chemical rockets and artillery. At his briefing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Feb. 27, the fourth day of the

James Borg August 16, 1991
President John F Kennedy campaigned for his new trade bill at the dedication of the Nashville Avenue wharf in New Orleans on May 4,1962.

America’s Trade Warriors–Still Searching for the Right Weapon

On Seventeenth Street, just a short walk from the White House, is a handsome, five-story building that is one of the oldest government offices in Washington. Appropriately, it houses the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), which deals with an issue that

Steven Dryden August 11, 1991
The Pavements of Los Angeles turn into a dormitory at night. Photo by Ulli Steltzer.

Abandoning Men: Jill Gets Welfare–Jack Becomes Homeless

For the past several years, advocates for the homeless have sought public support by drawing attention to the number of homeless families on the streets. That is an understandable tactic, for Americans respond to social issues on the basis of sympathy for the

Peter Marin August 11, 1991
Members of Queer Nation-the fastest growing gay organization in the U.S.-make their presence known at the inauguration of California Governor Pete Wilson.

Queer Rage

Photos by Marc Geller. DISNEYLAND, CA–Eighteen-inch golden tresses fall softly atop the pleated, puff-shouldered blouse of an immaculately scrubbed and smiling Alice-in-Wonderland. Nearby, Cinderella, her hair in a bun, a black choke-band around her neck, looks on as Alice smoothes out the mock-linen

Frank Browning August 8, 1991
A child is carried by her mother, waiting in line for donated food at a refugee camp, La Gloria, in Chiapas, Mexico.

Guatemala’s Refugees

APF Fellow Vince Heptig lives in Guatemala City and has been photographing Guatemala’s refugees in Mexico and other locations. In addition to living in poverty, the new generation of refugee children has lost most cultural ties to its Mayan heritage. A child is

Vince Heptig May 25, 1991
A co-op in Tome-Acu processes up to 7,000 tons of passion fruit pulp for a juice maker. Photo by Ricardo Azoury.

Japanese in the Amazon: The Riddle of Farming the Tropics

TOME-ACU, Brazil–Every evening, when work was done at the farmer’s cooperative, Noburo Sakaguchi would drive home to his small plot of land a few miles out of Tome-Acu, an agricultural village in the eastern Brazilian Amazon region. Sakaguchi, an agronomist by schooling but

Mac Margolis May 19, 1991
Participants in the first statewide People First conference in Connecticut. Photo by Rosalie Winard.

Pity is a Four-Letter Word

“One thing we’re going to vote on is a revolution!” Deep-felt cheers erupt from the convention crowd. “Resolution” is the word that T.J. Monroe wanted. But revolution, really, is more like it. Monroe and the 300 people in the hotel ballroom are retarded

Joseph Shapiro May 19, 1991
ABC graduate Curtis Spence (center) sits surrounded by ABC and Prep for Prep students. Spence is now associate director of admissions for the Hotchkiss School. Photo by Charlise Lyles.

Help for Strangers in a Strange Land

In an upcoming NBC television movie, a black youth from Harlem graduates from Phillips Exeter Academy with honors. Three weeks later, he is shot to death by an undercover police officer who alleges the young man tried to rob him. The film is

Charlise Lyles May 18, 1991