A photographic image may have the ability to burn itself into a viewer’s memory, but it is the person behind the camera who wields the real power. The photographer doesn’t just choose a subject, but in a larger sense decides who is recorded for posterity, and how.
This is worth remembering as one walks through the exhibition “Reflections in Black: Smithsonian African-American Photography” at the DuSable Museum of African-American History. All of the photographs were taken by black photographers, and they present a perspective on blackness that went unseen in mainstream American culture until fairly recently.
Organized by Deborah Willis, former curator of exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for African-American History and Culture, “Reflections in Black” is a traveling exhibition with two parts. The works now on display date from the 1950s through the present and make up the section titled “Art and Activism.” “The First Hundred Years,” comprised of photographs from 1842 to 1942, appeared at the DuSable in early spring.
Identifying photographers
The exhibition as a whole proposes that African-Americans have used photography since its invention to counter the negative images imposed on them by the dominant culture. In the last two decades curators, scholars and historians have explored this thesis and worked to identify the early black photographers, but this is the most ambitious effort so far.
“What makes this exhibition unique is the huge range of topics it presents,” noted E. Selean Holmes, chief curator at the DuSable. “We see aspects of everyday life — social gatherings, work, educational endeavors. The successes and the diversity of African-American experience are highlighted.”
The first half of the exhibition detailed the emergence of photography in the lives of 19th Century African-Americans. In 1840 a free black man named Jules Lion introduced the year-old daguerreotype process to New Orleans society.
Within a few years, many African-American photographers were opening studios across the country. They produced mostly portraits of well-dressed families, babies, community groups and graduates.
James Presley Ball, an abolitionist, took a series of photographs in 1896 of the public execution of a former slave named William Biggerstaff in Helena, Mont. The most disturbing image shows Biggerstaff hanging from a rope, his head covered, with a sea of white faces staring out from behind him.
Facing bitter racism
From 1900 to 1940 the number of black-run studios continued to grow. All the while, African-Americans faced increasingly bitter racism and a host of cruel stereotypes of blacks in minstrel shows, on postcards and in sheet music. The photographers’ responses — pictures of bands, weddings, dancers, typewriting clubs, high school cooking classes — provided a dignified counterpoint to caricature and suggested that most of their clients were absorbed in the daily business of living rather than race.
The rise of photojournalism in the 1930s and ’40s provided more outlets for photographers in local newspapers and national magazines.The shift toward a documentary sensibility comes into sharp focus in “Art and Activism,” which picks up at the start of the explosive civil rights era.
Joe Flowers’ pictures present the wreckage of the 1965 Watts riot with unforgettable details. One shows an African-American police officer walking down the street near a white mannequin lying face down in broken glass, a plume of black smoke rising in the distance. Other photos depict graffiti on shops proclaiming “Negro Owned” in an attempt to avoid looting.
Photos by Moneta Sleet and Louise Ozell Martin of the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jack Franklin’s pictures of the Selma to Montgomery March give a sense of not only the period’s upheaval but also the camaraderie among African-Americans.
There are also warm, intimate shots of black celebrities, musicians and political figures, from Chuck Stewart’s pictures of a radiant Dinah Washington and pensive John Coltrane to Bob Moore’s photos of Sarah Vaughan and Arthur Ashe. Robert Haggins reveals the tender side of Malcolm X with his young daughters and laughing with a victorious Muhammad Ali. Jack Davis offers a remarkable photo of King, Ralph Abernathy and Sammy Davis Jr. enjoying a chuckle at a public event.
Chicago connections
Some of the photographers in the exhibition have Chicago connections.
Bertrand Miles worked for Ebony and Jet magazines for several years in Chicago and photographed figures such as Adam Clayton Powell Jr., at an NAACP convention, and Mary Church Terrell, a civil rights and feminist activist.
The exhibition closes with informal images by street photographers such as Linda Day Clark and Sheila Pree. Like their predecessors, they continue to record the depth of their experiences in a light truer than one could have ever found in mainstream culture.
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“Reflections in Black: Smithsonian African-American Photography” continues through July 15 at the DuSable Museum of African-American History, 740 E. 56th Place.
