
Cover image

The June AHR includes a featured review of recent scholarship on the Flint water crisis and histories of environmental justice. The cover image is drawn from the visual artist, photographer, and MacArthur Fellow LaToya Ruby Frazier's Flint Is Family in Three Acts project, in which she spent five months in Flint, Michigan, documenting the lives of those most affected by the city's water crisis. In approaching her project, Frazier was in part inspired by a collaboration between photographer Gordon Parks and writer Ralph Ellison for their 1948 “Harlem Is Nowhere” essay that explored the psychological effects of racism on Black residents in Harlem. Through photographs and text, Frazier examined the disproportionate impact of the water crisis in Flint, where Black residents make up a majority of the city's population and more than 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. LaToya Ruby Frazier, “Flint Students and Community Members outside Northwestern High School (Est. 1964) Awaiting the Arrival of President Barack Obama,” May 4, 2016, Flint, Michigan, II,” 2016–17. Gelatin silver print. 24 × 20 inches (61 × 50.8 cm) © LaToya Ruby Frazier. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery.