Working from a database of visual archives and interviews with journalists, this paper deals with the conflicts of representations between journalists and African migrants in the sixties. Socially dominated, these migrants have to bear with “practical dilemmas,” since they do not want to invite media coverage of their living and housing conditions, so as to escape stigmatization. This case study testifies to the difficulty that migrants have in ensuring their rights to their own image and in setting forth a positive group image.