Corky Lees 50 years of photographic justice chronicled in new book [Video]

Corky Lee, while studying American history at Queens College in New York in the ’60s, was struck by a photograph taken in 1869 depicting the celebration of the completion of the transcontinental railroad in Utah. 

Despite learning that over 12,000 Chinese workers were involved in the project, he couldn’t find a single Chinese face in the photo. The omission immediately sparked his mission to help increase Asian American representation in mainstream media. 

Years later, after teaching himself photography, Lee went on to recreate the photograph in 2014 with descendants of the original Chinese railroad workers. He called the image a “photographic justice.”

Another notable work was his photograph of Peter Yew, a bloodied young Chinese American who was beaten and dragged away by police in 1975. The image, which he sold to the New York Post, inspired thousands of Chinatown residents to protest the rampant police brutalityin their neighborhoods. Today, Lee’s …