The Wind of Change by John Bulmer

On 3 February 1960, Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of Britain, made his controversial ‘Wind of Change’ speech to a hostile South African Parliament, in which he signalled his government’s intention to roll out independence to many of the British colonies. In 1964, The Sunday Times Magazine commissioned photographer John Bulmer to document the radical changes sweeping through Africa, devoting a whole issue to the report, ‘The White Tribes of Africa’. Visiting 14 countries over a two-month period, John captured the dying embers of colonialism set against a growing African nationalism. Africa was just a starting point and over the next 15 years, John continued photographing the profound social and political changes sweeping across the world, from the slow disintegration of the Middle East and the early collapse of the Communist bloc, to the totalitarianism of China and North Korea. In the mid-sixties, America was a country of extremes, but the grinding, hopeless poverty of two very different areas – Appalachia in East Kentucky and Oakland, California – was still a shocking contrast to the rest of America’s wealth. In South America, as capitalism and communism fought out their ideological battle, Bulmer brilliantly captured the collusion between the military and church for control of the hearts and minds of the people.