Baltimore police in 2015, Washington DC cop in 1957
The photo on the left has been
circulating on Facebook, was presumably taken in the last couple days and is from the Baltimore riots. While riot police swarm the city, a little African-American boy hands out water bottles to the cops.
The photo on the right was taken in 1957, and first appeared in the Washington Daily News. Taken during the Chinese Merchants Association parade in D.C., the cop gently cautions the white kid to step back from getting too close to the parade route.
The latter photo—titled “Faith & Confidence”—won the Pulitzer Prize, and is one of the most famous photos in American history.
It is quite a contrast, given what is going on in Baltimore right now.
UPDATE (4/29): Bishop M. Cromartie, senior pastor at Prophetic Deliverance Ministries in Baltimore, took the photo of the little boy handing the water bottles and had this to say:
Cromartie first noticed the little boy in the photo because no one else — not even adults — were trying to help the police like he was, he tells Bustle. The boy was doggedly persistent, trying over and over again to hand water to the police officer in the picture. Finally, after numerous attempts, he got the officer’s attention, and that was when Cromartie snapped the photo. The pastor says he sees the picture as “a way to show that Baltimore is not as bad and that the people who riot are just a handful, that clearly you have, statewide, people who actually care.”