Black and White images for Evangelical street preachers in Berkeley, California
From the author's inscription:
"These are pictures of a circus. A special kind of human circus. It takes place near my home in Berkeley.
I am not associated with the University. However for the past year I have been drawn there to photograph a style of Christian evangelism which stirs up fantasies of early Christians preaching in the streets of Rome.
I have a deep fascination with the participants, their fatidic pronouncements, and the events which they bring about, particularly the events of confrontation. Tempers erupt as the "reborn Christian" (many who are professed ex-drug addicts, ex-radicals, or ex-flower children tell the gathered that eternal doom is their fate unless they repent. Often attempts are made to drown out their words with music or staccato chants by the ever present heckler. But these new Christians endure and persist.
Scholars tend to dismiss their search for purity and certainty within fundamentalist religion as an unwillingness or inability to come to grips with real social problems. I do not choose to be judge of their motivation or sincerity. I have come to know many of the people in these pictures — they want to know why I photograph and I want to know why they are "Jesus Freaks".
I let the images speak for themselves about my concern for all the communicants in this late twentieth century circus"
Softcover, one of 5000 copies printed, published 1972 by Scrimshaw Press.
Good condition - some bumps and creases with shelfwear.
