‘Politically, it's important. It's important for humanity': the long-lost civil rights images of Ernest Cole

The Guardian

20-02-2025

A group of Black men stand naked in a line with their arms up, facing the wall, as they undergo a medical examination before being sent to work in the mines. The image is just one of many by the late Ernest Cole depicting the dehumanisation of Black people during apartheid. Writing for Ebony magazine in 1968, the South African photographer explained how he wanted his work to 'show the world what the white South African had done to the Black'. Since the late 1950s, he had been chronicling, up close and in detail, the horrors of racial segregation for publications such as Drum and the New York Times and had become arguably the most significant photographer documenting the country's oppressive regime.
'Ernest's photos are the first ones that gave us an idea of what apartheid was, from the belly of the beast,' says Haitian film-maker Raoul Peck, whose documentary essay I Am Not Your Negro, about James Baldwin, won an Emmy in 2019. Now, with his new film, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, Peck turns his focus to the triumphs and tragedies of Cole's life, covering his time not only in South Africa but in the civil rights-era US.
Peck had first encountered Cole's work while studying in Berlin in the 1970s. 'At the time, it was about politics and propaganda. It was not about the photographer.' It wasn't until years later, when Peck read Cole's one and only book, House of Bondage – showing scenes of violence, poverty and malnutrition – that he understood the depth of his work and legacy. 'When you see what he has done within 10 years of photography, it's incredible. The scope and the diversity and the thematics – I don't know if there are many photographers that were able to accomplish that,' says Peck.
After living through the terrors of apartheid, Cole fled the country of his birth in 1966, and lived in exile in the US. At 28 years old, he became one of the youngest people to appear on South Africa's list of banned individuals. He arrived in New York at the height of the American civil rights movement. Initially, Cole was moved by what he witnessed. He saw interracial and gay couples expressing affection publicly; he saw protests and uprisings, and began to photograph these moments of everyday Black American life. He even travelled to Lowndes County in Alabama during the freedom struggle, and to the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr in Atlanta. However, it wasn't long before Cole saw that the American dream was a myth. 'Within two years, he got it,' says Peck. 'He had a clear judgment about what segregation meant, not only in the [American] south but also in the most cosmopolitan city of the US.'
Cole eventually succumbed to the difficulties of being both an artist and an immigrant in the US and suffered periods of homelessness before dying of cancer in 1990 at the age of 49. His photographs of the US remained unseen until 2017, when his estate got a call from a Swedish bank informing them that about 40,000 negatives had been locked away in three safety deposit boxes. The estate eventually got in touch with Peck and asked if he would be interested in making a film.
'Politically, it's important,' he explains. 'It's important in terms of his own legacy. It's important for South Africa. It's important for humanity. Imagine if all of those pictures of the US, which nobody knew even existed, would have been lost? For me, that was the happy ending. That despite his death, we were able to save that incredible amount of work.'
Cole felt like an outsider in the US and often felt homesick even though he understood he could never return. He saw the similarities between racism in South Africa and the US and once said in an interview with the New York Times in 1967: 'In apartment houses, doormen eyed me distrustfully as if I were there to steal something. In restaurants, white people physically shy away from black men.'
From joy to destitution, Cole witnessed the breadth of the Black American experience while in New York and the deep south. 'He never took a photo from far away. He's always within the story, both in South Africa and in America,' says Peck. 'It's like: 'I want to feel you, I want to see you, and I want you to see me. You can intervene at any time.' That dialogue is important. He's a very humanistic artist.'
Sign up to Inside Saturday
The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.
after newsletter promotion
Many of Cole's pictures capture the racist signage that existed in South Africa during apartheid. As LaKeith Stanfield narrates in the film: 'South Africa is the land of signs. A total separation of facilities, on the basis of race. Sometimes they say only 'goods', but if you're Black, you know that elevator is for you.'
Although Cole had received criticism from his US editors that his work lacked 'urgency', Cole captured the everyday lives of Black Americans authentically. 'He embodied [the idea] that photography is not just an intellectual process. It's about life. It's about the human condition. It's about taking risks. It's not just about beauty. It's about meaning. It's about people,' says Peck.
In a letter to the Alien Commissioners in both Sweden and Norway, Cole had expressed concern that he was becoming a 'chronicler of misery, and injustice and callousness'. He desired a break from capturing provocative scenes. Still, there are moments from his time in the US, such as this image of three smiling girls, that would have felt like a breath of fresh air.
Ernest Cole: Lost and Found by Raoul Peck will be released in the UK and Ireland on 7 March by Dogwoof.