How MIT helped young Roxbury photographers of the 1960s turn pro

In the late '60s, young Boston artists began polishing their craft in MIT's Roxbury Photographers Training Program, the subject of a new exhibition at the MIT Museum. Close Fifty years ago, Roxbury was the poorest neighborhood in Boston, just as it is now. Back then, its predominantly Black residents lived with intense and open racism. Hundreds of Roxbury buildings had been knocked down for a highway that was never built, leaving vacant lots. Nationally, the Vietnam War and the Black Power movement were at their peaks. In this turbulent time, "a lot of people were trying to make decisions about what they were going to do with their lives, and I was one of them," recalls Hakim Raquib. One day, as he came downstairs from the Bay State Banner community newspaper in the heart of Roxbury, a chance encounter changed Raquib's life.