Unseen

In February 2016, Rachel Swarms, Darcy Eveleigh, Damien Cave, and Dana Canedy discovered dozens of photographs—and explored the history behind them—and chronicled them in the popular blog series Unpublished Black History. The month-long series was overwhelmingly well-received and garnered 1.7 million views and thousands of comments from readers. This book dives even deeper in the Times photo archives—known as the Morgue—to showcase 120 more photographs and their untold stories.

The never-before-published photographs include a 27-year-old Jesse Jackson leading a rally of 4,000 people in Chicago, Rosa Parks arriving at a Montgomery Courthouse, and a candid behind-the-scenes shot of Aretha Franklin backstage at the Apollo Theater.

Were the photos—or the people in them—not deemed newsworthy enough? Did the images not arrive in time for publication? Were they pushed aside by words at an institution long known as the Gray Lady? Swarms, Eveleigh, Cave, and Canedy explore all these questions and more in this one-of-a-kind book.

Author Biography

Darcy Eveleigh is a photo editor the New York Times and the creator and editor of The Lively Morgue.

Dana Canedy is senior editor at the New York Times, where she has been a journalist for twelve years. In 2001, she was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for “How Race Is Lived in America,” a series on race relations in the United States.

Damien Cave is the Deputy Editor for Digital on the National desk of the New York Times, where he oversees several reporters and a wide array of digital projects. He was formerly a correspondent in Mexico City, Miami, Baghdad, and Newark.

Rachel L. Swarns is a journalist and author, who covers race and race relations for the New York Times. She is the author of “American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama,’‘ which was published in 2012. Her upcoming book about Georgetown’s roots in slavery will be published by Random House in 2020.