In 1962 Leonard Freed went to Berlin to shoot The Wall being erected. There he saw an African American soldier standing in front of it and the thought struck him; that at home in the US, African Americans were struggling for civil rights, and here in Germany an African American soldier was ready to defend the United States. This prompted a lengthy examination by Freed of the plight of the African Americans at home in the United States. Freed traveled to New York, Washington, D.C. and all throughout the South, capturing images of a segregated and racially-entrenched society. The photos taken at that time were then published in 1968 in “Black in White America”.