Hats and Men Cram onto Train No. 3

One of the first black photojournalists in South Africa, Ernest Cole sought to demonstrate apartheid’s corrosive effects by exposing the political injustice inherent in every aspect of daily life. Here, he turned his lens to the country’s perennially overcrowded and chaotic railway stations and trains, with separate waiting areas and cars for blacks who were forced to relocate to townships far from their jobs. During his short career as a photographer in South Africa, Cole often took dangerous or illegal measures to make his pictures. In 1966, he escaped the country and eventually made it to New York, where his illusions about finding a place that had resolved its racial problems were quickly stripped away. He died with little to his name, having published only one book.