I found these early color slides of a 1939 community Fourth of July picnic on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, by Marion Post Wolcott.*
They’re rather shadowy, but still lovely — like old oil paintings.
To scroll through larger pictures, click on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on any thumbnail in the gallery. I lightened the images here a little, but those in the gallery are the original versions.
St. Helena Island is one of the Sea Islands and a center of African-American Gullah culture and language.
Here in Rwanda, the American Embassy held its Independence Day reception last night. This is because the 4th is Rwandan Liberation Day — when Kigali was liberated in 1994, and the genocide was effectively ended. July 1 is Rwanda’s Independence Day, celebrating the end of Belgian colonialism in 1962.
*via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
enclos*ure 