Published by Light²Media, 2015. Photographs and text by Ken Light. Edited by Melanie Light.

This book of Berkeley-based photographer Ken Light’s (born 1951) earliest photos from 1969 to 1974 documents the social, cultural and political landscapes of America as they roiled with upheaval, and marks his transformation from a student activist to a concerned social documentary photographer. Light’s frontline photos show people across race, class and political lines, and counteract the truncated memory of the 1960s that has often been promoted by the media.

Light’s journey through America begins with teenagers at the beach with their transistor radio. Here is the quiet before the storm: high-school students with their Eisenhower textbook, retirees playing cards and cafeteria workers quietly striking. And then, suddenly, the new, alternative worldview bursts forth: the Vietnam Moratorium, the Republican Convention, riots, POWs returning home, Nixon’s resignation. What’s Going On? reveals how politically divided the United States was as a progressive, more egalitarian world order threatened to emerge. It stirs long-forgotten memories for those who were present, creates a cultural and historical legacy for the youth of today and argues that much of our current turmoil is the result of cataclysmic changes in the 1960s we have not yet absorbed.

Hardcover: 192 Pages