1965

After serving in the Navy in San Diego, former AP copyboy Julian Wasser became a contract photographer for Time Magazine in Los Angeles, doing assignments for Time, Life, and Fortune. His photographs have appeared in and have been used as covers of Time, Newsweek and People magazines in the United States. Additionally, Wasser’s photos have also been used on cover assignments for The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times in London.

Here, Julian Wasser brilliantly captures a moment of oration and eloquence delivered by American author James Baldwin. Baldwin was an ardent Civil Rights activist, using his affinity for language to write several essays and deliver speeches for the movement and push for racial equality. Baldwin did not shy away from expressing the harsh reality of existing as a black person in America, and his powerful stance captured in this photograph commands attention from the viewer. Civil Rights are human rights, and Humanity upholds this belief. Every single individual is composed of the same basic elements, and we all belong to the same family of homo sapiens. Our moral principles should always acknowledge and reflect this.