PHOTO Baltimore riots Time magazine cover asks ‘Is this 1968 or 2015?’ with Instagram photo
The new issue of Time magazine (above) features a black-and-white photograph taken on the streets of Baltimore during the recent protests and asks the questions: What has changed between 1968 (the year Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated) and now? And what hasn’t?
Although the issue of race in this country has many aspects that remain unchanged, one thing that has clearly changed is how the public gets its information about “what’s goin’ on.” The iconic photo featured on the Time cover was taken by aspiring professional photographer and Baltimore native Devin Allen, who has been sharing his amazing photographs of his hometown in the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death on Instagram.
Here is the original Instagram post featuring the Time cover photo:
“When I first saw the news of what happened to [Freddie Gray], I knew I was going to cover it,” Allen told Time. “But I never thought it would get this big. My city kind of has a bad rap, but I thought if we can come together peacefully, it [would] be epic for this city, and it was my goal to capture that.”
Allen later talked about his motivation. “I went in thinking I would show the good, the bad and the ugly,” he said. “Of course, since I’m a black man, I understand the frustration, but at the same time, I’m a photographer. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m going to tell you exactly what happened. That was the goal.”
As far as the Time cover photo, Allen said, “When I shot that, I thought it was a good picture, so I uploaded [from my camera] to my phone…By the time I’d done that, the police was all around me. I was in the middle of it.”
“For me, who’s from Baltimore city, to be on the cover of Time magazine, I don’t even know what to say. I’m speechless,” said Allen after the cover was announced. “It’s amazing. It’s life changing for me. It’s inspiring me to go further. It gives me hope and it gives a lot of people around me hope. After my daughter, who’s my pride and joy, this is the best thing that’s happened to me.”
And on that note…