PAUL FUSCO – RFK FUNERAL TRAIN
2021-05-24In the years since they were taken these photographs have become a beloved and influential, series in photography. While in some ways they represent the end of the dreams of the sixties, at the same time they celebrate the idealism and diversity of America.
In the middle of 1968, two events shook the nation – the assassination of Martin Luther King and the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Hastily arranged, Robert Kennedy’s funeral train took place on June 8th – a swelteringly hot early summer day. Paul Fusco, then a staff for LOOK Magazine, was given a place on the train. As the train made its progress from New York to Washington, where RFK was to buried at Arlington next to his brother, hundreds of thousands of mourners came out to line the railway tracks and pay their final respects. From inside the train, Fusco began to take pictures of the mourners – people from every section of society – black, white, rich, poor, in large groups and on their own. For the eight hours it took for the train to make the usually four-hour journey Fusco never put down his camera except to reload film shooting approximately 2,000 pictures.
Opposite – Untitled from the RFK train portfolio., 1968
Exhibition runs through to August 7th, 2021
Peter Fetterman Gallery
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave., Gallery A1
Santa Monica
California 90404
