In September 1976, a few days after Mao Zedong's death, a long line formed in Beijing on the way to mourning ceremonies. A photograph by Karl-Heinz Wellmann directly records the queue stretching along the road.
This was not the later routine of visiting Mao's memorial hall. It was a temporary ordering of public grief after the death of a national leader, turning an urban route into a place of waiting. The photograph cannot reveal what each person felt, but it clearly shows that access to the mourning ceremonies had to be taken in sequence.
