Born Free and Equal: An Exhibition of Ansel Adams Photographs : Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art, History, and Science

Book Description
Ansel Adams did more than the right thing in 1944 when he wrote an appeal for justice. His book made the New York Times Book List at the same time it burned in San Francisco. Within months, his courageous book would disappear from the American landscape like the 120,000 interned Japanese Americans he wanted to make visible. Today his bold, conscience-driven story about the worst civil rights violation in American history deserves to be told again and again.

Book Description
"The fatal phase, a Jap's a Jap,might well have poisoned the course of racial tolerance for years to come." Ansel Adams, 1944"It is one of the publications designed to temper one of our prejudices, and I think it does it successfully." Eleanor Roosevelt, My Day, 1945."Politics suppressed the exhibit of Adams' Manzanar photos twice, in its inaugural showing at the Museum of Modern Art in November, 1944,and now the Library of Congress has ordered the photographs back to Washington." Los Angeles Times, 1985."The politically engaged character of this project may surprise admirers of Ansel Adams. Adams always implied a judgement, a comparison of nature to the meanness of man."Dan Hoffman, Kansas City Star, 1987

Book Description
Ansel Adams wrote this courageous story about 120,000 interned Japanese Americans in Manzanar during WWII. This documentary work would make them visible and the story of their injustice known. In 1944, this book made the NY Times Book List. Then, it was burned in San Francisco. It disappeared before WWII ended. Today, Adams appeal for justice remains a story to be told again and again. This limited edition of 3,000 copies contains Adams' original story illustrated with 19 small duotone documentary photographs, a note on the photography and an index of the 1984 Born Free and Equal Exhibition photographs.

From the Editor
In March 1945, Ansel Adams believed, "If the Japanese bought out the entire edition, the book would at least get around, but the publishers have done such a dismal job that I really don't like to think about it." By October, 1984, Emily Medvec knew her mentor Ansel Adams, "Never had a clue what the army and our government did to keep Ansel's courageous story from the eyes of the American people and mainstream public opinion." Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in her national column, My Day, in January 1945 that "Born Free and Equal is one of the publications designed to temper one of our prejudices, and I think it does it very successfully." Then, the book disappeared. By 1987 Don Hoffman wrote in the Kansas City Star following an exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, that "the politically engaged character of this project may surprise admirers of Ansel Adams. Adams has always implied a judgment, a comparison of nature to the meanness of man."

About the Author
Ansel Adams was born in San Franciso in 1902 and died in Carmel, California in 1984. He was an internationally known teacher of photography and photographers from around the world came to study in his annual workshops in Yosemite. He is well known as a pioneering conservationist and Director of the Sierra Club from 1934 to 1971. His actions as a pioneer humanitarian seeking acceptance and justice for the thousands of interned Japanese American citizens are not well known.

From the Publisher
When Ansel Adams wrote his powerful story about the fate of the Japanese Americans in 1944, the Army and War Relocation Authority reacted quickly with censorship to remove it from circulation. Then, when Emily Medvec organized the first national exhibition tour of Born Free and Equal in 1984, the Library of Congress canceled the tour by removing the original photographs a year later. We originally reissued this new Limited Edition of 3,000 copies to accompany the exhibition. There is a limited supply in stock for immediate delivery. The book contains nineteen (19) small black and white duotone reproductions to illustrate this controversial story.

Excerpted from Born Free and Equal by Ansel Adams. Copyright(c). All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission
What is going to happen to these people when the war is over and the stress and turmoil of relocation are a thing of the past? Already we are aware of the antagonisms that do not promise too healthy a condition. While the relocating evacuees are being welcomed in some parts of the country on a basis of American equality, they are having their troubles elsewhere. The spirit of Jim Crow walks in almost every section of our land; sometimes it is hard to tell whether opposition is racial, economic, or based on the fears of long established communities when accepting hitherto unknown people. Hatred is a perfectly natural complement to fear and to the war spirit; and it is difficult to assure otherwise solid and sincere people that ancestral relation to the enemy does not prove disloyalty. It is interesting to note that they do not make this assumption of disloyalty in regard to our citizens of German and Italian descent. In this respect, at least, we are maintaining a more civilized attitude than in the last war most German- Americans labored under suspicions of disloyalty. We must realize that the ultimate proof of loyalty lies in the actions and intentions of the individual. The fatal phrase, A Jap's a Jap, might well have poisoned the course of racial tolerance for many years to come.


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