Melanie Mathews ری ٹویٹ کیا
106 year-old William Casby holding his great-great-granddaughter. He was born into slavery in Danville, Virginia in 1857, worked as a longshoreman, and lived to be 113, photograph by Richard Avedon, 1963....
Casby was born into slavery in 1857 in Danville, Virginia, just four years before the Civil War began. Emancipated as a child after 1865, he came of age during Reconstruction and later worked as a longshoreman. By the time this photograph was taken, he had witnessed slavery, the Civil War’s aftermath, Jim Crow segregation, two World Wars, and the early years of the Civil Rights Movement.
Avedon photographed Casby as part of a series documenting people who had been born into slavery, creating minimalist portraits against stark white backgrounds to focus entirely on the subject’s presence and expression. The image is both intimate and monumental, the elder’s weathered face beside the softness of new life.
Casby reportedly lived to be 113.
When Casby was born, James Buchanan was president and Abraham Lincoln had not yet been elected, yet he lived long enough to see the presidency of John F. Kennedy and the dawn of the modern civil rights era.
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