Along with many history, biography and literature titles, two photography books stand out in celebration of Black History Month in February.
Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto by Camilo José Vergara (University of Chicago Press, $55) results from a project started in 1970, when author and photographer Vergara began documenting what he thought was the gradual collapse of an inner-city community. But he found, in 43 years, that "the destiny of depopulated, decaying neighborhoods is not simply a story of continuous decline." Harlem evolved: some areas declined, others prospered, and it's now a thriving, diverse community. Vergara begins with four young music students walking over rubble, and a man--a scavenger--in a horse-drawn cart. Some 350 pages later, we've seen Jimbo's Hamburger Palace and a music-themed McDonald's, a basketball game, a rainy noir corner on West 125th, the snowy wreckage of the Renaissance Ballroom and Casino, ruins and semi-ruins (artistically striking, as devastation often is), the Italianate townhouses of Strivers Row, community gardens and churches.
The Way We Wore: Black Style Then by Michael McCollom (Glitterati Inc., $30) chronicles African-American fashion from the Harlem Renaissance to hip-hop. Beginning with 1956 tinted portraits of McCollom's parents, the book resembles a family photo album--with very fashionable people (and a few "I can't believe I wore that!" shots). McCollom's 1977 homecoming dance photo has him in a velvet double-breasted blazer, "completely seduced by Vogue and GQ." On the facing page, nine years later, we see him sporting a very bad style decision. Miniskirts, Easter hats, some seriously long '70s sideburns, dapper uncle Archie in a zoot suit, radiant brides, proud grooms, Bobby Short in patchwork leather pants, author Susan Fales-Hill in her mother's elegant Worth of Paris evening dress-- the charm of this book lies in the personal, usually amateur photos. Here is style as it was (and is) lived, not airbrushed. --Marilyn Dahl, editor, Shelf Awareness for Readers