
American Pictures (1985) [pdf] - brudgers
http://www.american-pictures.com/english/book/American%20Pictures-small-size.pdf
======
Grustaf
This has been for sale as a paper book for decades, it’s very popular. Jacob
is also very frequently invited to talk about his pictures and experiences in
America and he is still a well known figure in Danish society.

He was our neighbour for 4 years and he’s very friendly, open and very nuanced
for an activist of sorts. He often organises events for immigrants and
unfortunate people, and invites them to his home. At some point he had a dozen
people living there.

If you like the book buy a paper copy or invite him to speak. He’s by no means
poor but I’m sure he makes good use of any money he makes.

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interfixus
This may well be worth the read, and certainly received its fair share of hype
in the late seventies, but be aware that the author - at least in his native
Denmark - has been repeatedly exposed for somewhat inventive interpretations
of truth. For example, it has been firmly established that in actual fact he
did not - as he claims in _American Pictures_ \- participate in or even
experience any fighting at Wounded Knee in 1973, where he apparently only
arrived when the incident was effectively over.

~~~
jacobush
I only quickly read to page 11, (all pages super interesting) but I don't
think it says outright he was there, though strongly implies it. But it says
Wounded Knee made it apparent to him he was not a fighter.

~~~
interfixus
Holdt's propensity for fabrication is well known. To the extent that that he
was once featured on a Danish site reminiscent of The Onion - about how he
accompanied Apollo 11 to the Moon, but arrived late for take-off and had to
cling to the ascending Saturn V. On arrival, he found only sad and
disenfranchised nazis there.

~~~
Grustaf
That’s hilarious, you don’t happen to have a link?

~~~
tviling
It's in danish:

[http://rokokoposten.dk/2015/11/07/jacob-holdt-beskriver-
rejs...](http://rokokoposten.dk/2015/11/07/jacob-holdt-beskriver-rejse-til-
maanens-bagside-i-ny-selvbiografi/)

~~~
Grustaf
Mange tak

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b0blee
This is so shocking! I lived though this era as a young white man in
California, poor but totally unaware of the inhumane conditions that the book
portrays. My ignorance frightens me. I wonder what atrocities still exist in
our world today, and what we can do to bring them to an end.

~~~
sabarn01
I grew up in Appalachia we took food to people who lived in shacks. The county
next to mine got electricity from the recc in 1979.

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fiblye
I skimmed through and every page I landed on was an interesting slice of life.
The pictures feel “authentic”, more so than the typical magazine photos I come
across.

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alphadog
Being born in the 1980s I was curious to see what the American Black
population's poverty rate was in the 1980s. To my surprise it was as high as
35% [1].

1\. [https://www2.census.gov/programs-
surveys/demo/visualizations...](https://www2.census.gov/programs-
surveys/demo/visualizations/p60/219/fig07.jpg)

~~~
perfmode
50% around 1959... wow

~~~
pjc50
Not really surprising given that was a deliberate policy objective of lots of
places in the pre-civil rights era?

Even as late as 1985 the police could carry out what in any other country
would be described as a terrorist attack, leaving a number of people dead and
burning down 65 houses, without serious consequences to themselves.
[https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820...](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820/why-
did-we-forget-the-move-bombing)

~~~
rayiner
I feel like folks have a bit of a skewed perspective on the timeline of the
civil rights movement because of the way we teach it. For example, Brown v.
Board was decided in 1954. We teach it as a culmination of a process (because
it’s more dramatic that way). But Brown was just the start, rather than the
end, of school desegregation. For the most part, the south simply ignored the
result. The famous event where JFK had to send federal troops to forcibly
integrate the University of Alabama happened almost a decade later. The first
school desegregation cases were brought in Mississippi in the late 1960s. As
of 2015, there were still 174 school districts under court-supervised
desegregation plans.

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beebmam
This is profoundly good and deeply human writing.

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miobrien
Fascinating. Where did you find this?

~~~
brudgers
On Youtube, I subscribe to _The Louisiana Channel_ (for the Louisiana Museum
in Denmark). Arthur Jafa mentions _American Pictures_ in this recent
interview:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iprTrTgXvZ8&t=0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iprTrTgXvZ8&t=0s).
So I googled it.

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hestefisk
This is a classic.

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ecoled_ame
This is so great.

