Photographer captures a history of change in Austin

Photographer captures a history of change in Austin

http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/default.asp?ArID=261270

12/16/2009
By: Jessica Sondgeroth

From a battlefield medic in Vietnam to a photojournalist in Austin,
Alan Pogue's camera sheds light on stories less traveled.

In one particular collection of work, Pogue streamed together a
series of photographs documenting the work and lifestyle of black,
white, Latino and gay activists in Austin. The photo exhibit
"Creating Change: Austin in the 70s" was previously on display at the
South Austin Museum of Popular Culture.

Though his photographs speak volumes on their own, Pogue's personal
account and connection to each frame details the contextual
circumstances that make each image particularly poignant, telling a
history of Austin rarely heard or discussed.

The story begins at what was once the YWCA on Guadalupe Street across
from the University of Texas at Austin.

"It was sort of an incubator for lots of organizations and projects,
many of which are still with us today," Pogue said.

Pogue's images document, among other things, the Community United
Front, a group of black radicals who started a breakfast program for
children of low-income families in East Austin, The Rag, an
alternative newspaper dedicated to activist and enterprise journalism
in Austin, and the Brown Berets, a Chicano nationalist activist group.

"These organizations were cutting edge, I mean, they were trying to
do something about injustices ingrained in our society, like racism
and poverty, as being a stigma, rather than something everybody
should deal with and try to alleviate," Pogue said.

But, Pogue's exhibit was not meant to simply dwell on the unfortunate
transgressions and social developments of the past, it was meant to
translate into the issues of contemporary times.

"I mean I think nostalgia is fine, if anything to remember how things
were, but more than that is 'How did we get to the way things are
now?' And we got to where we are now, because all these people did a
lot of work," Pogue said. "It's not just an idea, it's not just
rhetoric. Really the rubber's meeting the road, and the shovel's
hitting the dirt, and people were really putting out an effort. And
so the idea I'm trying to put out is continuity, more than just nostalgia."
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WATCH THE VIDEO [See URL for video links.]

Austin
Alan Pogue walks you through the history of Austin in the 1960s and 70s.

Chicano Austin
To learn more about the Brown Berets' Chicano movements in Austin,
watch the video.

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