quote:

Arguably, no magazine brought the evils of Jim Crow, segregation, the Klan and everyday white racism to the attention of more Americans than Look, which published article after article about race relations during the 1950s and 1960s, including pieces by Republican Sen. Edward Brooke explaining why “Black power is a response to white irresponsibility,” Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver calling for a “Yankee Doodle form of socialism,” Robert F. Kennedy asking “What if God is black?” and conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr. arguing “why we need a black president.”

“For 47 years, I portrayed the best of all possible worlds — grandfathers, puppy dogs — things like that,” Rockwell said in a 1969 interview. "That kind of stuff is dead now, and I think it’s about time.”

Indeed, Rockwell — who in 1968 said he couldn’t have painted “Freedom From Want” or the rest of his “Four Freedoms” series in that decade, because “I just don’t believe in it” — had thrown in his lot with the tides of social change. And he brought many of Look’s readers along with him. As one wrote: “I have never been so deeply moved by any picture. Thank you for showing this white Southerner how ridiculous he looks. The truth is pretty hard to take until we get it from a Norman Rockwell.”