A Letter From Perry Greene
Dear Reader,
My name is Perry Greene. I am the brother of Stanley Greene, the person on whose legacy the Stanley Greene Foundation was founded. To understand how Stanley became a world-renowned photographer, it might be helpful to know about his early life.
Stanley was born in Brooklyn Jewish Hospital in New York City on February 14, 1949 – Valentine’s Day. His parents, Stanley and Javotte Greene, were both actors. Stanley’s great, great grandmother was born a slave in Bergen County, New Jersey. It is fair to say our parents were struggling actors, in that our father picked up odd jobs to support the family, while our mother stayed home between acting gigs to care for us. As young boys, we also joined the family business, taking on the occasional background roles by which many actors then and now cobble together an existence. Despite the glamour and glitz of Hollywood, this was not an easy (or predictable) way to make a living. I remember many cold nights on the back of cold buses or in the back of our father’s cold station wagon, waiting to be called to the set for a brief walk-through or crowd scene in the cold night.
The Greene family
Stanley was a courageous man – let no one tell you differently. He was certainly braver than I could ever hope to be. But as a kid, maybe not so much. For instance, when it came to taking the garbage out at night to the trash bins in the backyard, a seven year old Stanley trembled in fear. That became my task. Stanley was at times bullied in school. He was bullied by cowards who saw an easy target in someone who would not conform to their image of who he should be, what he should look like and who he should love. Stanley refused to be confined to any stereotype. I still have the remnants of old bruises and bruised pride in defense of my brother during these often tense encounters.
In the early nineteen sixties, we traveled cross country as a family. Our mother, father and I were in the National Company of the play, The Miracle Worker, playing the parts of Viney, John and Percy…servants in the home of Helen Keller. Stanley traveled with us. Because of segregation in the South, where Blacks could not appear on the same stage with whites, my family was dropped off in Hollywood, and white actors played our roles while touring the South. While in Hollywood, Stanley and I spent many hours wandering the streets around Hollywood and Vine looking for the random movie stars amongst the rich and famous.
Stanley was always one to test the limits of what is possible. Whether as a scrappy child in elementary school or rebellious youth in his high school, Stanley challenged authority and the status quo. This aspect of his personality would stay with him his entire life. The civil rights activist, John Lewis, described the actions of people who get into trouble for the right reasons as “good trouble”. Stanley, sometimes got into “good trouble” for the right reasons, whether objecting to needless school bureaucracy, unfair policing, civil rights abuses or needless wars. He made his voice heard.
While Stanley’s father worked tirelessly to support the family, he also found time to engage in many hobbies including playing guitar, winemaking, golfing, and yes, photography. Stanley Sr. would spend many late nights in the basement dark room developing and hanging the pictures he had taken. I did not realize it at the time, but young Stanley, at 11 years old, had discovered the magic and art of photography through the darkness of that small room in the basement.
Stanley studied photography at the School of Visual Arts and San Francisco Art Institute, and was mentored by the photographer W. Eugene Smith. While in California, he honed his photography skills chronicling the chaos that often accompanied the punk rock scene of the time.
Feeling restless in America, feeling stifled and unfulfilled, and like many Black artists before him, Stanley moved to Paris in 1986. It is here that his life’s journey as a conflict photographer began. It was a journey of truth telling. Along that journey, he channeled the world’s sigh of relief at the fall of the Berlin Wall with his iconic photographic “Kisses to All, Berlin Wall”; he stayed behind the lines at the Russian White House staring down gunfire and hypocrisy; he forced the rest of us to face the genocide in Rwanda and the indifference to the drowned souls in the wake of Katrina. In his photobook, Open Wound, he pulled the scab off a wound in history – Chechnya. In Fallujah, Iraq, Stanley once again brought to the forefront the brutality of war and retribution and placed it in front of our faces for all to see. In real time, he shared the horror of four American contractors brutalized and hung from a bridge. Stanley barely escaped with his life. Stanley was all about telling the truth, and sometimes, the truth hurts.
Stanley died of cancer in Paris on May 19, 2017. Although he is gone, his legacy, the burning images of needless lives lost, and the dogged determination to search out the truth in the fog of war, will remain through his photography, as well as the books he authored. The Stanley Greene Foundation has set out to make this acclamation true by empowering young photographers and photojournalists to set out on their own journey of truth telling through the photographic image and to engage in good trouble.
Peace & Grace,
Perry Greene Ph D
Perry Greene, Ph D
Perry Greene retired as Vice President for Diversity & Inclusion at Adelphi University, where he is also an associate professor. Prior to this present position, Dr. Greene served as Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs & Institutional Diversity. As the chief diversity officer, Dr. Greene believed that promoting diversity and inclusion requires institutions of higher learning to be innovative and proactive in their effort, He received his Ph. D. in English Education from New York University. Dr. Greene’s research interests are in the areas of teacher preparation, social justice, diversity, and the education of urban youth. Recently published articles include “Embracing Urban Youth Culture in the Context of Education (Urban Review) and “Teaching Race: Making the Invisible Concrete” (Teaching Race in the 21 st Century). He has presented on these issues at professional conferences.