3.12 Photography and Social Change

Racist images, such as cartoons, minstrel posters and advertisements, were used to justify the mistreatment of African Americans and Jim Crow segregation. Black scholars, artists and activists answered with photography, a tradition that went back to Douglass and Truth (2.21).

At the 1900 Paris Exposition, W.E.B. Du Bois helped put together the Exhibit of American Negroes. It displayed hundreds of photographs of African Americans, along with hand-drawn charts and graphs, in English and French, on Black population, education, property and work. The exhibit showed an international audience the progress and diversity of Black Americans just a generation after slavery.

Many of the exhibit's charts were drawn by hand by Du Bois's students at Atlanta University, using bold colors and inventive designs. People still study them today as early examples of using data visualization to make an argument about race.

During the New Negro movement (3.11), Black photographers sought a distinctive Black aesthetic. They built their work around the beauty of ordinary Black life, along with history, folk traditions and pride in Africa. They documented Black people at work, at play, studying, worshiping and at home, showing their spirit, beauty and dignity, and changing how people around the world saw African Americans.

James Van Der Zee ran a portrait studio in Harlem for decades. He's best known for his photographs of Black Harlemites, especially the growing Black middle class, and of well-known figures such as Marcus Garvey and the blues singer Mamie Smith. He often used props, including elegant furniture and luxury items, careful poses and darkroom techniques to bring out his subjects' personalities and style.

The required sources are four photographs from his portfolio:

• 'Miss Suzie Porter, Harlem' (1915)
• 'Garveyite Family, Harlem' (1924), linked to Garvey's movement (3.18)
• 'Swimming Team, Harlem' (1925)
• 'Couple, Harlem' (1932), a stylish couple in fur coats posed with a fancy car

Van Der Zee's portraits show Black people as prosperous, modern, self-assured and proud. In an era when mainstream images mocked Black people, simply showing ordinary Harlemites as elegant and dignified made a political point: the New Negro was real, confident and in charge of their own image.