I just finished reading Doing Documentary Work by Robert Coles. I find Coles overly emotional — if brilliantly lyrical — in his work, as well as resistant to or suspicious of technology, but I still loved this book for being an inspirational cross-section of social and political thought from the ’60s and ’70s. The really raw meat of it; down to the transcripts of important meetings by activist groups that went on to make history and (I like to think) change the world. Some of my favorite bits:
“You start poking around, interviewing, you’ll hear a lot of talk, a lot of agreement and disagreement — that’s not history, that’s people saying something. History is when you come together, when we’re here, and we go there — to do what we believe is right, even if you can be shot dead, and it’s noon and the sun is out and you’re an American, killed for wanting to be able to vote.” — Bob Moses, to a gathering of the SNCC in the ’60s.
“No ideas but in things.” — William Carlos Williams. (He meant to proceed in observation without advance speculation. The thing itself was the subject, a vessel empty of expectations. )
“When you’re weak, you’re strong that way.” An observation, again, of Bob Moses. If we’re all weak in the same way, the most important part of that statement is ”we’re all.” All of us.
“The rock-bottom issue is not only one’s stated attitude toward ‘art’ in general, but one’s sense of oneself.” And then, later: “And so it goes, then — doing documentary work is a journey, and is a little more, too… a passage that can become a quest, even a pilgrimage, a movement toward the sacred truth enshrined not only on tablets of stone, but in the living hearts of those others whom we can hear, see, and get to understand. Thereby, we hope to be confirmed in our own humanity — the creature on this earth whose very nature it is to make just that kind of connection with others during the brief stay we are permitted here.”
What do neighborhoods do to people over a span of time, and people to neighborhoods? Make those who read, see, and those who see, well-informed and humanely literate.
Now: “I got it,” or, better, “I’m really getting it.”
