The Terminal Island Brotherhood Raceway was located in the heart of the Port of Los Angeles and was established in the 1970s by Big Willie Robinson III, (1942-2007), founder of the International Brotherhood of Street Racers. The Raceway became a melting pot for car enthusiasts from the greater Los Angeles area and beyond. Robinson believed in drag racing as a way to unite people of all races and classes, and ease racial tension. “When you get around cars, man, there ain’t no colors, just engines”, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1981. The Raceway flourished until the mid ‘90s, and photographer Eddie Meeks was there throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. Meeks shot thousands of photographs, compiled scrapbooks and sold prints in a booth at the raceway where drivers could purchase images from the previous week’s races. Because of the velocity of what he was shooting, the photographs are infused with energy and action, and are a hybrid of formal portraiture and documentary photojournalism. “These were no professional racing teams,” Meeks recalls. “These were just guys with a car and a garage.” Cars were a form of self-expression and a tool for connecting with others, and Meeks documented the camaraderie that existed between drivers.
The Eddie Meeks Archive and Cornelius Projects are working together to preserve the vast collection of images Meeks shot of the Raceway. The goal is to find a permanent home for the archive. For more information contact Laurie Steelink and/or Tim Maxeiner.
