Images of Emancipation
A new book argues that photography was not incidental but central to the war against slavery, racism and segregation in the1850s through the 1930s.
View ArticleFraming — and Reflecting — Beauty
A photo in Deborah WIllis's new exhibit shows a woman holding a mirror inside a beauty parlor. It underscores how African-Americans have constructed their image to empower themselves.
View ArticleCivil Rights, One Person and One Photo at a Time
In the midst of the national struggle for civil rights, James Karales, born into an immigrant Greek family in Ohio, turned his camera on the individuals fighting for rights and respect.
View ArticleThe Woman in a Jim Crow Photo
Gordon Parks documented some of the quieter, but no less compelling or important, moments of the civil rights struggle. Decades later, one of his subjects recalls a poignant image.
View ArticleA Russian-American Photographing Native Alaska
In southeastern Alaska at the turn of the 20th century, a Russian-American photographer’s intimate understanding of his community was a prerequisite for photographing it.
View ArticleReimagining a Tragedy, 50 Years Later
Dawoud Bey explores the relationship of past to present with diptychs of people the same age as the victims of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing — both at the time of the bombings and in the present day.
View ArticleAnonymous Men, Made Real
An exhibition seeks to restore the humanity and immediacy of the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Army, the first black regiment raised in the North during the Civil War.
View ArticleA Civil Rights Photographer, and a Struggle, Are Remembered
By chronicling the Delano grape strike in California in the 1960s, Jon Lewis exposed the harrowing story of labor behind the fruits and vegetables that Americans consumed without thought.
View ArticleOne Drop, but Many Views on Race
A series of portraits and an accompanying book argue that racial identity is not merely biological or genetic, but also a matter of context and even personal choice.
View ArticleBlack Performers, Fading From Frame, and Memory
Carrie Mae Weems's series "Slow Fade to Black" plays on the concept of the cinematic fade, showing mid-20th century female black performers "disappearing, dissolving before our eyes.”
View ArticleBorn by a River, Watching the Change
For some, Braddock, Pa., embodies the decline of the small Rust Belt town. For LaToya Ruby Frazier, it is home, which she explores in a series of elegiac images.
View ArticleImages of Emancipation
A new book argues that photography was not incidental but central to the war against slavery, racism and segregation in the1850s through the 1930s.
View Article
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