Martin Luther King Jr., photographed by Jean-Pierre Laffont, delivering a speech against the Vietnam War outside the United Nations, Manhattan, 1967.

*Top,* protesters at the first Women’s Equality March, where feminists filled the streets demanding equal jobs, education, and reproductive rights, Manhattan, 1970; *above,* the funeral procession for six of the prisoners slain in the Attica State Prison uprising, Brooklyn, 1971.

A couple kissing during the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen rock festival, Watkins Glen, New York, 1973.

A view of the 600,000 gathered for the Watkins Glen festival.

*Top,* the Savage Skulls, a Puerto Rican gang based around Fox Street, South Bronx, 1972; *above,* the activists Abbie Hoffman and Jane Fonda at a protest against the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, Washington, D.C., 1970.

A member of the community of young trans sex workers living on 65th Street and Broadway, Manhattan, 1966–67.

Gloria Steinem speaking at the first Women’s Equality March.

*Top,* Muhammad Ali pointing at Joe Frazier before the boxers’ second match, three years after their “Fight of the Century,” Manhattan, 1974; *above,* a protester raising his fist in solidarity with the Black Panther Party at an anti–Vietnam War demonstration, Manhattan, 1969.

The singer Isaac Hayes and other fans arriving at Madison Square Garden for Ali and Frazier’s “Fight of the Century” rematch.

*Top,* a women’s-liberation activist being arrested at a demonstration outside the 30th Republican National Convention, Miami, 1972; *above,* protesters during a Moratorium March, denouncing Richard Nixon’s policies and advocating for the end of the Vietnam War, Washington, D.C., 1969.

Police officers taking an anti–Vietnam War protester into custody outside the 30th Republican National Convention.

Students swimming in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in defiance of the Kent State shooting, Washington, D.C., 1970.

*Top,* demonstrators during a Moratorium March, Washington, D.C., 1969; *above,* a couple in Central Park after New York’s second Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day celebration, Manhattan, 1971.

Pièces de Résistance

Ahead of the midterms, a new book of photographs by Jean-Pierre Laffont captures two decades of American defiance

Perhaps only a first-generation immigrant can truly understand America. “We are outsiders,” explains Eliane Laffont, wife of the French photographer Jean-Pierre Laffont. “Whether we like it or not. You know, we are not your typical Americans, so it’s very easy for us to see what’s good and what’s bad and what’s ugly …”

Few have had a better vantage point than Jean-Pierre Laffont. Since his arrival in New York, in 1964, Laffont has photographed America at its most restless, rebellious, and unruly, capturing the civil-rights movement, anti–Vietnam War protesters, hippies turned Rajneeshees in Oregon, the gay-liberation movement, gangs in the Bronx, and the street culture that gave rise to hip-hop. He insists politics have never entered into it.