Fruit of the Orchard: Environmental Justice in East Texas

A Tear in the Lens

7 A Tear in the Lens Sometimes the well dent is visible, where once a spring oozed; now dry and tearless grass; or it was covered deep, not to be discovered till some late day, with a flat stone under the sod, when the last of the race departed. What a sorrowful act must that be, the covering up of wells! coincident with the opening of wells of tears. These cellar dents, like deserted fox burrows , old holes, are all that is left where once were the stir and bristle of human life … henry david thoreau, Walden The great educator Robert Coles was once showing the work of a number of Farm Security Administration photographers—those lean and rich documents of America in the 1930s—to some young students. One student in particular, Lawrence Jefferson, was drawn to the work of Marion Post Wolcott—one of the less well-known but perhaps the most ethically committed of all these federal photographers. Coles was curious to know why and Jefferson had a succinct but telling response: “She’s more upset with what’s wrong than anyone else.” I think of that blunt but truthful response whenever I look again at the years of work that Tammy Cromer-Campbell has produced on her countless journeys to Winona. Not for her the cool objective documents found in the government files and picture press of ’30s and ’40s America. The photographer is not invisible in this small Texas community. Tammy has approached her subjects with great respect and proper discipline, but there is no neutral morality in the images she has created. Her ethical passion is mixed evenly with her intrinsic compassion for her subjects. But she is upset with what is wrong—and rightly so. I need speak no further about the industrial blight that has laid waste to the “orchard” of Winona’s family and children. Tammy tells that story elsewhere in this volume—aided by other important voices from the sciences and the community itself. And she gives a critical place on the dais also to Phyllis Glazer, that irresistible force of nature and conscience who has given that rarest of human gifts—hope—to people who previously had none. It is her Roy Flukinger Roy Flukinger is Senior Curator of Photography Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center The University of Texas at Austin 8 Roy Flukinger story and theirs—elevated by the steel and majesty of Tammy’s photographs—which tell this tale with such terrifying clarity. That Tammy’s imagery is powerful is not at issue here. Ever since she began showing us her first results from the mid-1990s, it was obvious that something profound had stirred her heart and ignited her vision. The photographs of the Winona families never failed to shake us up, and as she continued to document their faces and tell us the stories of their lives—and, unfortunately, in many instances their deaths—it was evident that she was continuing on in the tradition of concerned documentary photographers everywhere. The arc of that tradition is told in full in many fine photohistorical volumes. Just know that ever since the growth of the industrial age of the early nineteenth century, a social awareness for those adversely affected by this era has consistently grown throughout America, Britain, and Europe. Stories and essays on this topic were further enhanced with the judicious publication of images—at first with engravings but after the 1840s, with photographically based imagery as well. Social documentation became an important discipline in and of itself. It has been practiced by photographers throughout a century and a half and among its dedicated and foremost practitioners will be found such important figures as John Thomson, Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Paul Martin, Bill Brandt, Walker Evans, W. Eugene Smith, Russell Lee, David Douglas Duncan, Don McCullin, Eugene Richards, and Stephen Shames. Beyond just “telling a story,” many of them brought a firm artistry to bear, using the visual elements at their command to discover the strength of their subjects and to bring design and contrast to impact and persuade the viewer. In the process of seeing and recording, many of them also developed a voice that helped their photographs to speak out as well. As Fritz Henle, another pioneering twentieth-century freelancer, once explained: “How could you meet and talk with these people, see how they lived, and not be moved? Of course we wanted our cameras to also be able to do good for others...