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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
The national Congress for Racial Equality organized demonstrations at the New York World’s Fair in 1964 to protest civil rights injustices and to show leadership to its more radical Brooklyn chapter. Private fair police drag protestors from blocking an entrance to the New York State pavilion. AP/Wide World Photo.

The Devastating Power of Racial Belligerence

Sonny Carson is not the best known or even the most disruptive of New York’s freelance “black activists,” but he has proved the most painful thorn in David Dinkins’side. The two men’s names were first linked in the public’s mind in August 1989,

Tamar Jacoby May 13, 1991
Map

The New Enemy in Guatemala

The signs are visible everywhere in Guatemala. Newspapers carry frequent accounts of grisly execution-style murders. Immigration authorities report a surge in the entry of Colombian nationals. Deluxe apartment buildings and office complexes rise dramatically on the outskirts of Guatemala City. A newly chartered

Michael Massing February 20, 1991
Harold Kulakow, whose dream was to be a rabbi, lives in a nursing home, but is anxious to live in a group home. He works at a sheltered workshop during the day.

Forcing the Young into Nursing Homes

Photos and text by Joseph P. Shapiro. Jeff Gunderson’s voice is choked with worry. He is about to reenter the place he calls “the concentration camp.” It is a nursing home, one of two where Gunderson, who has cerebral palsy, was sent from

Joseph Shapiro February 18, 1991
Students and tutors at the Ridgefield ABC house included, (left to right) Debby Lashley, Simone Page-Janello, Ana Negron (seated), Steve Blumenthal, Karen Schwamb (standing), a former tutor, Carlina Santos (seated), Shauna Daniel. Photo courtesy of The Ridgefield Press.

Importing Girls to Integrate a Connecticut Public School

Ridgefield, CT-The cute Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx perched atop her bunk bed in a boarding house and pondered her ambivalence toward this affluent, mostly white town where she attends school. Ana Negron, 17, delighted in the academically challenging school. She adored

Charlise Lyles February 18, 1991
The funerals of two local villagers killed by the Israeli army prompted a political rally at Kufr Neimeh in the West Bank.

Faces of the Anguished Middle East

APF Fellow James Lukoski has made several trips to the Middle East, focusing on Israeli-Palestinian issues. These photographs illustrate some of the tensions in the West Bank and Jerusalem and were taken before the U.S. declared war on Iraq. The funerals of two

James Lukoski February 14, 1991
Drawing of man standing at table talking to a man and women sitting

Intolerance on Campus

After taping the poster announcing the spring activities of the black student association to his door in Wright Hall, Timothy Rey had gone to sleep around one o’clock that Saturday morning, his freshman year at the University of Indiana at Bloomington. When he

Lee Daniels February 13, 1991
Gay Day 1990 in San Francisco featured a dart game using Sen. Jesse Helms as the target to raise money for the North Carolina Senate race.

Gay Politics

Photos by Marc Geller NEW YORK-The walls of the elevator were polished mahogany. Inside stood four people. A somewhat severe elderly woman in a business suit was coming home at day’s end. An unmistakably wealthy gentleman with a maroon silk ascot and yellowish

Frank Browning February 9, 1991
A Punjabi farmer, using a hand tool to create a channel for his irrigation water, takes a break on a foggy morning. Photo by APF Fellow Russell Clemings

“The Gift of the Indus”

If any one place deserves to be called the birthplace of modern irrigation, that place is the Punjab, a sandy triangle of pancake-flat alluvium where India’s British rulers built the first of their 46 “canal colonies” in 1849. The first colony consisted of

Russell Clemings November 21, 1990
Rubber tappers at the Cachoeira Extractive Reserve load up mules with sacks full of Brazil nuts, which they have collected from the forest floor. Photo by Ricardo Azory

Hard Rows: The Amazon after Chico Mendes

SERINGAL CACHOEIRA, BRAZIL–It doesn’t look much like a battlefield. A huddle of wooden huts raised on stilts crowns a grassy knoll. Tidy dirt paths stitch the way between the houses. Lush orange trees dot the hill, throwing deep shadows, and at the crest,

Mac Margolis November 19, 1990
Robert Group picture of the first ABC class, at Dartmouth College, 1964. Photo courtesy of A better Chance, Inc.

Clearing a Path from the Ghetto to Choate

In Judith Berry Griffin’s office on Boston Common, a watercolor called The People Could Fly hangs on the wall. It portrays blacks of every age and size taking to the sky like birds. As president of ABC: A Better Chance, Inc., Griffin’s job

Charlise Lyles November 18, 1990
Red Cross doctors and Palestinian rioters in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in Jerusalem flee from rubber-coated steel bullets fired by the Israeli army during a battle last March with stone-throwing camp residents. The night before, two Palestinians were shot dead and dozens injured. The doctors and nurses from the camp’s Red Cross clinic dangerously station themselves amidst the fighting to provide quick first-aid to the wounded.

The Palestinian Revolt: New Miseries in an Endless Feud

WEST BANK–Well into its third year, the most recent Israel/Palestinian conflict continues to grind along unrelentingly. Israel’s control of the 1.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is maintained through military occupation, provoking an internal political and moral debate

James Lukoski November 14, 1990
Harvard Law School professor Derrick Bell addresses a rally at the law school, threatening to take a leave of absence if the school did not give tenure to a black woman. AP/Wide World Photos

The Push for Diversity in America’s White Male Faculties

Until recently, the broad debate over race relations at the nation’s colleges and universities focused largely on students. No longer. Pushed by a series of dramatic events during the past year, that often fractious discussion has now expanded to include those who teach

Lee Daniels November 13, 1990