North Carolina, 1950

Elliott Erwitt is known for his deeply humanistic photography. He once said of his work: “Pictures have to do with heart and mind and eye and they have to communicate and as long as they do that, it’s valid.” When Erwitt took this picture in North Carolina in 1950, segregation was still legal. The image shows rather than tells, one of Erwitt’s great skills, and the viewer is left with many questions. It would be another 14 years before public facilities were finally integrated here, with the passage of the national Civil Rights Act of 1964.