Leonard Freed was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929 to a working-class Jewish family. An aspiring painter, Freed discovered his passion for photography while on a trip to Europe in 1953. Later, while working in Germany in 1962, Leonard Freed noticed a black American soldier guarding the divide between East and West as the Berlin wall was being erected. It was not the partition between the forces of communism and capitalism that captured Freed's imagination, however. Instead what haunted him was the idea of a man standing in defense of a country in which his own rights were in question at home. is experience ignited the young photographer's interest in the American civil rights movement raging on in the US. Later, he began to photograph the life of other people ghting for freedom and democracy across the world. He quickly found

that his interests lay not in recording the progress of the civil rights movement or the many other struggles for freedom and democracy, but in exploring the diverse, everyday lives of communities of people that had been marginalized under repressive regimes.

 

It was while on this journey that Freed found himself in South Africa photographing the lives of those living under a system of apartheid. Freed's work always communicates the fabric of daily existence; it portrays the common humanity of a people persevering in unjust circumstances. His combined works are a journey – his journey – to become America's leading pioneer in the genre of social conscious photojournalism.

 

Special Reception
Friday, January 18th at 3:45-5:15pm
Law College Boardroom 3rd oor Law College Building
This is a special reception to view this exhibition and to visit with Visiting Law College Professor, Albie Sachs. Albie was part of the long struggle for freedom and democracy in South Africa in the early 1990s. After the first democratic election in 1994, he was appointed by President Nelson Mandela to serve on the newly established Constitutional Court from which he retired in October 2009.

All are welcome but please R.S.V.P. at mercuro(at)law.msu.edu by January 11th ... for any questions on the exhibition please contact Professor Nicholas Mercuro, MSU College of Law.