As a philosopher-turned-photographer, Bob Adelman forged a career committed to both social action and aesthetics. When he was not documenting the civil rights movement in the North, he was hanging out with — and taking pictures of — artists like Andy Warhol and Larry Rivers.

Fittingly, his documentary photography had a strong political bent, as he examined social issues like poverty in America, the antiwar movement and the civil rights struggle. He did so without concern for critical attention, especially since “art” photography over the last four decades has become more about the image-maker documenting himself.

“Serious photography of social and political nature is not considered art in the same way as social and political art is quite acceptable in painting, music, or literature,” he said.

But this week, Mr. Adelman will become, in essence, a photographer in residence at the Library of Congress, a position created to draw attention to the importance of the medium in American life. He will give talks and lectures for the library, continue to photograph and pursue his book projects on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Warhol.

Mr. Adelman was born in Brooklyn, raised in the Rockaways and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York in 1946. Hoping to find answers to his larger questions, he studied graduate-level philosophy at Columbia University, but there weren’t any “What’s the purpose of life” courses. Instead, he turned to aesthetics, which is the philosophy of art.

In time, he grew more interested in “making and doing,” which led him to learn photography — applied aesthetics, perhaps — and to join the civil rights group the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE. Moved by the courage of young people who at great risk battled segregation through passive resistance, Mr. Adelman cast his lot with them. He was named the national photographer for CORE in 1961.

“For me to get involved in something, I had to see some purpose to it and it had to mean something,” he said. “I realized that my involvement would be very dangerous, but I had a long think with myself and decided that this was something worth risking your life for.”

That didn’t happen immediately, but the first sit-ins he photographed were in segregated restaurants along a major highway in Maryland. There was pushing and shoving, and several of his friends were arrested. His first reaction was to intervene, but he thought that maybe a photograph was more important.

Those photos were used as evidence in court cases and to help raise money for the movement. His photographs of the civil rights struggle were also published in many magazines, and eventually some were used in the congressional Kerner Commission on civil unrest in 1967. His images, which became important historical documents, made a difference. Mr. Adelman, who often photographed Dr. King, said that the civil rights leader — Doc, as he calls him — appreciated photography and its key role in the movement’s success.

“Garry Winogrand famously said that photographs don’t change things,” he said. “I think that’s a very silly thing to say because they do.”

During the 1964 Freedom Summer, Mr. Adelman spent three days in western Louisiana, photographing and living with the Rev. Joe Carter, an African-American minister who, after four previous attempts, successfully registered to vote. Later that night, a group of Klansmen descended on his home at the end of a dirt road. Some of the reverend’s black neighbors, expecting trouble, had positioned themselves in nearby woods. Gunshots were exchanged. The Klan fled.

It was too dark to photograph, so Mr. Adelman dropped to the floor next to the minister, who was kneeling and clutching his rifle. Soon after, a portrait of Reverend Carter (Slide 1) ran with a story in Ebony magazine.

To Mr. Adelson, segregation “was an organized system of terror” that was put in place and enforced by the Klan and community leaders.

“We very much needed the photography to reveal this, to show people exactly what was going on as the demonstrations progressively peeled away what racism and segregation meant,” he said.

After the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, Mr. Adelman continued his photography and his activism. He also delved into children at play, photographing and interviewing them, and helped develop a series of reading textbooks for urban elementary schoolchildren. The books, drawn from real-life situations, were meant to be a counterpoint to children’s books like the Dick and Jane series in which all the characters were white.

He continued through the 1990s, often zeroing in on social issues, photographing for Look, Life and The New York Times Magazine.

Mr. Adelman studied philosophy primarily to find his way in the world. But it was through photography that he discovered the meaning that he was searching for.

“I realized that I wanted to get involved in the world and make a difference,” he said.

And he has.

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