There are images so well suited to a tragic moment in history that they become representative of an era. Series Funeral train, by Paul Fusco, is one of them. In 1968, after the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, the American photographer, posted in the train carrying the remains of the senator, had captured on his film the weeping and dignified inhabitants, massed in front of the tracks, come of their own accord to make a last tribute to the candidate for the presidency of the United States. The series, ignored for thirty years, has become very famous, reflecting the emotion of these Americans in this troubled time, marked by the fights for civil rights and the hopes for change. The photographer died on July 15, 2020, at 89 years old.
At this time, the American photographer works for the magazine Look. He learned photography in the military during the Korean War, before studying photojournalism at the University of Ohio and moving to New York. For Look, already, he particularly likes dealing with social issues: migrant workers, the life of blacks in the South, the work of minors in Kentucky …
On June 5, 1968, he learned that Robert Kennedy, candidate for the Democratic primary in California for the nomination in the presidential election in November, and brother of the president assassinated five years earlier, was in turn killed. On June 8, he received authorization to board the funeral train that would transport the remains from New York to Washington DC.
When the convoy leaves the tunnels near New York, Paul Fusco, struck by the mass of people who have gathered on the passage of the train, turns his device on these anonymous who greet, cry or just stand in silence, dignified and solemn. Poor families, whites and blacks, children perched on poles… A father and his son salute, with the mother in the background, on a dirt road. From this image, the photographer will say, in an interview for an exhibition at the MoMA in San Francisco: “They are poor and they have a difficult life, but they are proud of what they have accomplished, and grateful to Bobby for cultivating hope among poor people, blacks and the countless Americans left behind. ” For eight hours, the photographer machine-guns, without changing places, trying to reduce the blurring effect due to the movement of the train and the evening which gradually falls.
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