Love in the French Quarter

Growing up in the wake of the Great Depression, Roland L. Freeman became interested in public life from a young age. Subsequent experiences with desegregation and the civil rights movement defined Freeman’s commitment to social engagement. His embrace of photography’s capacity to illuminate the lives of Black Americans was catalyzed after a period of serving in the United States Air Force and subsequently attending the March on Washington in 1963. Here, Freeman depicts a young couple tenderly kissing on a park bench in New Orleans’s French Quarter—a historic locus of Black culture and life.