Black-and-white photograph of a group of people, mostly white and one Black woman and young Black girl, standing behind a barricade — Ernest Cole (South African, 1940–1990), Midtown, c. 1970–1972, Digital gelatin silver print, © Ernest Cole. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the Ernest Cole Family Trust.

Three Insights from Leslie Wilson’s Talk on Ernest Cole’s Photographs

By Tara Kaushik

June 30, 2025—In her recent talk at Mia, Leslie Wilson, academic curator and director of research programs at the Art Institute of Chicago, explored the complexities of South African photojournalist Ernest Cole’s documentary work in the United States. Throughout his travels, Cole wrestled with his expectations of America—ones powerfully shaped by his reading of magazines like Ebony, Life, and Look—and the cultural realities of his experiences.

“I was so very much surprised to find bitter white racism in America,” he said in a 1967 article in the New York Times. “I had been told that being colored didn’t matter at all in the United States—outside of the South, that is. But everywhere I saw racial attitudes that were very much like those I know from South Africa.”

Wilson, who curated the exhibition “The True American: Photographs by Ernest Cole,” offered up many insights about Cole’s indelible images. Here are three.

Black-and-white photograph of Black musicians performing on the sidewalk of a crowded street as people pass by

Cole Saw the Street as a Gathering Place

“As Cole searched for truth, New York City’s streets offered a place to begin,” says Wilson.

His photographs of Harlem examined how people in the neighborhood transformed the street—and stoops and sidewalks—into a meeting place, a venue for performances and political organizing, for students and Black Panthers alike.

Color photograph of two Black women walking down a city street

Ernest Cole, Fashion Photographer

“He had a fantastic eye for beautiful women walking down the street,” says Wilson. “Although a much smaller segment of his photographic output, his color photographs show the dynamism and vibrancy of the era’s fashions and the community as a whole.”

With an appreciation for the boldest of fashion statements, Cole captured outfits that truly were the moment.

Black-and-white photograph by Ernest Cole of four African American men standing outside next to a brick building.

Cole Examined the Life of the Mind

Through his photographs of bookstores, newsstands, and readers themselves, Cole revealed “an interest in the places where he could glean what kinds of ideas people were exploring,” says Wilson.

Cole spent a lot of time in and around the National Memorial African Bookstore in Harlem. The store, owned by civil rights activist Lewis H. Michaux, was a Harlem landmark—a thriving hub for African American history, scholarship, activism, and debate.

About the Exhibition

“The True America: Photographs by Ernest Cole” was on view at Mia from February 1 through June 22, 2025. The exhibition was the first to present South African photographer Ernest Cole’s images of Black lives in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Created during a consequential period in American history, these photographs were rarely released during Cole’s lifetime and were believed to have been lost until they resurfaced in 2017.

Brought together for the first time in this exhibition, the pictures reflect both the newfound hope and freedom that Cole felt in America and his incisive eye for inequality and systemic racism in the United States. Seen through the eyes of a man who fled the apartheid regime in South Africa, this trove of images provides a revealing window into late 20th-century American society.