What Does a Protester Look Like?
Protest the War
By Judith Joy Ross
Steidl/Pace/MacGill Gallery
2007, 52 pages, $5.00
That’s the question that a new book by photographer Judith Joy Ross seeks to answer. Protest the War offers a series of portraits of nonviolent activists in eastern Pennsylvania, primarily in the Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton areas. I grew up in Allentown and know several of the subjects in the book. More than that, I know well the environment in which they work for peace. It’s an area that does not have strong traditions of dissent or protest.
As a child, I remember occasional letters to the editor of the local newspaper denouncing protesters and peace activists of all types. Even among more sympathetic groups, I remember hearing comments like, “Those protesters really need to do better PR. They just turn people off.”
Then I got to know some of those peace protesters and found them to be some of the most thoughtful and gentle people I had ever met. Ross’s book seeks to present them in that light.
A concluding essay by Andrew Szegedy-Maszak focuses on the same question and captures the spirit of the book:
America, in the not too distant past, saw riots occasioned by opposition to the war in Vietnam or support for civil rights. These portraits…are tranquil, and they depict American citizens who are seemingly ordinary in every way.
To be precise, the twenty-two individual protestors featured in this book are not engaged in angry demonstration. The book contains no scenes of great marches, raised fists, or chanting slogans. Rather, each portrait shows an individual bearing witness—standing vigil in opposition to war. Few carry signs or symbols of protest. In their simplicity, the portraits could be almost anyone, anywhere—and that seems to be the point.
But there is an emotional thread that runs through the portraits—an intensity that reflects seriousness of purpose. Whether the emotion on the subject’s face is sorrow or defiance, distress or determination, each shows deeply held beliefs and concern for the state of the world. That concern—whether it is expressed in peaceful vigil, angry protest or what Gandhi called “positive program”—is our best hope for survival.
As a simple witness to those who stand in “strange idleness” (as one of the featured protestors describes the act of standing vigil), Ross’s book deserves a look to see some of those thoughtful, gentle people who have placed themselves against the current of military violence and bloodshed.
