It was 2023 and my friend Alan (an artist, architect, and designer) was visiting me in Oakland, California when he found several old black-and-white prints in my closet.
“What are these?” he asked.
I explained that they were images I had shot during my stint at a summer camp, back in 1971. Alan was so impressed with these photos, he arranged to have them framed and exhibited locally.
As I think back, I see that a tremendous opportunity had presented itself for me during a time I was doing photography but also burning out from working odd jobs in New York City to support myself: that summer, I was invited to teach children photography at Camp Blue Star in Hendersonville, North Carolina, a Jewish-owned overnight camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains. As a one week experiment, they hosted various groups of inner-city children of all races to participate in all the outdoor camping adventures; swimming in a pristine lake, hiking all through the mountainside, and making friends with a new peer group. I would become the camp photography teacher, free to shoot, develop, and print as I wanted.
At the time, I didn’t fully grasp the historical significance of what the camp was providing, as the Deep South had been transitioning from the “Jim Crow” era to adapting to the new reality of living under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed public segregation.
Inspired by this new idea, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, came to the camp with her four children. Of all the kids I photographed, this family remained especially memorable to me.
The camp's energy and leaders left a lasting imprint: the experience “came into my life” and influenced later choices.
Years later I married, fathered a biological daughter, and with my ex-wife, adopted three mixed-raced children, two boys and a girl and one Korean boy — circling back to the influence of Camp Blue Star’s interracial environment on my life.
I have never forgotten that time. A time of hope and joy. A time of grace and sharing.
Beautiful Faces 1971 is a photographic journey back in time to the first interracial summer overnight camp in the South. Remember of course, in those days most children played, communicated, acted silly, and had sleep-overs only within their racial divide of either black or white.
So, this first overnight summer camp was special and unfamiliar, particularly for those southern communities that sponsored children to attend for a week.
The specialness of this event attracted Coretta Scott King, wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who attended with her children to participate in the camp itself.
This monumental first camp took place at Camp Blue Star in Hendersonville, NC, nestled away on 500 acres with a small lakeside village of children's cabins spread around with trails and roads heading up toward the many fields and camp outbuildings up the mountainside. Idyllic for urban children to escape to and create a temporary new order of all children playing and enjoying each other, no matter what they looked like.
This unique series of photographs is a slice of history never before seen. It was for some a 'Summer of Love'... an awakening ... Hope!