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12 Million Black Voices

A Photography Journey

Join educator Gary Saretsky, for his lecture on "12 Million Black Voices," a 1941 photodocumentary book authored by Richard Wright. Photos were originally taken by the Farm Security Administration.

Join educator Gary Saretsky, for his lecture on "12 Million Black Voices," a 1941 photodocumentary book authored by Richard Wright. Photos were originally taken by the Farm Security Administration. This event is made possible by the Friends of the Plumsted Library. Please Register.

12 Million Black Voices, first published in 1941, combines best-selling author Richard Wright's poetic history of African Americans with 90 photographs made for a federal agency, the Farm Security Administration (FSA), during the Great Depression. The book was edited by Edwin Rosskam, an FSA editor and photographer who did a series of documentary photography books about American life. The photographs are by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Russell Lee, Ben Shahn, and others who have become renowned. The images depict both rural poverty and urban life in northern ghettos.

Gary D. Saretzky, archivist, educator, and photographer, worked as an archivist for more than fifty years at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Educational Testing Service, and the Monmouth County Archives. Saretzky taught the history of photography at Mercer County Community College, 1977-2012, and served as coordinator of the Public History Internship Program for the Rutgers University History Department, 1994-2016. He has published more than 100 articles and reviews on the history of photography, photographic conservation, and other topics.

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