Inspirations: Sunday Best

Russell Lee: Negro boys on Easter morning. Southside, Chicago, Illinois

The image above is very special to me. In fact, a painted rendition of this image hangs in my office. Some who are familiar with this photograph call it “Sunday Best,” but it’s actually called “Negro boys on Easter morning. Southside, Chicago, Illinois.”

The image was taken in 1941 and was part of a collection of works commissioned by the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI). Between 1935 and 1944, several photographers were tasked with documenting American Life. This era produced incredible pieces of art that capture American life in with amazing richness and complexity.

According to historian John Mason, the photographer Russell Lee, had been sent on assignment to Chicago with the aim of documenting Black American life in Chicago in those days. Some of the images from that assignment would later appear in Richard Wright’s 12 Million Black Voices.

Most people who are familiar with the image, love it because it depicts five young black boys who seem like masters of their destiny. However my favorite things are the details that become apparent the more you look at it. You start to notice how the boys are arranged in an almost perfect triangle. The boy in the center is positioned in an almost standing pose so that he serves an anchor point. Or how the boy on the far left of the frame is carved out by the overcast sunlight on his hat…….

I could go on forever, but you get the idea. This image is a meticulously crafted composition and yet it feels effortless, natural, and authentic. It makes me wonder about how we distinguish markers of truth and reality and whether or not, there’s a difference