#mccarthyism

#mccarthyism

I am a firm believer in history stupidly repeating itself, particularly bad history, because for some reason men in power don't think history applies to them. Or they think something that was universally agreed upon as bad is something good they want to bring back and shove down people's throats. After World War II and the horrific destruction caused by the Nazi Party, the world said never again, so much so that the party was banned in Germany.

What jumps out in her images of musicians, however, is the wariness in their eyes and gestures-even from the courtly Duke Ellington. "I know of no photographer who has photographed people as inwardly as Lisette Model," the photographer Berenice Abbott wrote. Perhaps shared experiences of persecution connected Model, who had fled the Nazis in Europe, with her subjects. Even as the U.S. government used jazz to promote America's image abroad, the genre's luminaries suffered racism and violence at home.

Charley Johns was the state senator and governor who steered his eponymous committee. It came into being in 1956, towards the end of the national red scare.