powerHouse Books Our Voices, Our Streets: American Protests 2001-2011

The American street has always been the public place of political and cultural expression. This collection of images by Kevin Bubriski covers a decade of American expression that began on January 20, 2001 with the inauguration of George W. Bush and ends with the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in New York City in October 2011. The crowds on the street at the 2001 inauguration made clear that America was at a difficult and defining moment following a contentious election that would unsettle the path of the country's identity for years to come. Following the inauguration of 2001and the 9/11 tragedy, the American streets were the setting for memorials and vigils, parades and protests. These photographs chronicle events in New York, Washington, DC and Vermont. These events were large and sometimes small, and in both cases usually unnoticed by the mainstream media. These street portraits show a diversity of Americans: veterans, families of men and women on active duty, families of the victims of the 9/11 tragedy, parents of US service men and women killed in the Iraq War, security personnel, police, Muslim Americans, anti-war activists, disenfranchised minorities and anarchist youth. The common denominators that bring these images together are the lens of the Hasselblad camera and the public stage of the American streets.