fortbelvoir

i feel as if the faces of these men are lost in time

Lose the notes please.

We see black faces and they're underexposed; it was okay to make sloppy images of these guys?

Most people have a hard time exposing for people of colour, now why this is is where the guessing begins. It has gotten easier with digital, but before that, I can only imagine. Take a look at my postings.

@ "CASHAW" : Nice of you to politely point out the differance of quality between 1940's photography & the quality available now , but.... since Graycard's profile sez hes a "photographer" he might just have known that!!!....unless hes making some B.S. point of look how the poor neegrowz were treated then....opening the door to some A.C.L.U. you owe us some-such-schitt..... get over it & be thankful photos of the poor neegrowz were evin kept , hell the photo survived the cival rights period ~amazing~ too bad attitudes cant change like technology does.......

I love those pictures! But the automatic scan process definitively doesn't do them justice... I got no photoshop skills whatsoever, but made a "quick fixed" version of this one anyway. Enjoy! ;)

i agree i learned photoshop using these pictures its a shame that they treated these pictures this way the auto scan takes from the black boarder and darkens the picture i cant belive some of the oohs and arrrs comments people have made over these slipshod scans

the clouds in the background are breathtaking. the composition of this is perfect.

I say cut the LOC a break. They are at least putting them up. With mass scannings, I do not expect the best.

Cashaw> I'm not blaming them for anything: every person having to go through a lot of color negatives scanning knows how time consuming it is, and they have a HUGE lot of negatives. That's why I took the liberty to try and do better: I wasn't thinking it could be considered as an attack or whatever...

Why instead of Negro engineers, doesn't say non-pure white engineers? The fact that it's and old picture, means it need and old description?

That was the original title, and it's preserved. On the other hand it's rather "amusing" that during the war, black people were sent on the battle field, so that ten years later, they'd fight for the same rights as those by who's side they'd fought...

I agree that the title is original and the library of congress is preserving the original material in all ways. What used to be a common term for an African American or Black person was never thought of as negative or bad. I understand today why people think its negative, especially if you are a younger person. Negro was used commonly before Cival Rights movement.

Yes, blacks went to the battle field to help fight racism. What is truly interesting is it was these very same people who helped to start the Civil Rights movement. My grandfather told some very interesting stories about WWII, and coming home.

This image has been used in the indicommons.org post: Black History across the Commons - Part 1