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    Black: A Celebration of a Culture
    Black: A Celebration of a Culture
    Black: A Celebration of a Culture
    Ebook520 pages54 minutes

    Black: A Celebration of a Culture

    By Deborah Willis

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Tucked away in the dusty halls of the Smithsonian archives and nearly forgotten by most historians, black culture is a vast, complex, interconnected web of different people, trends, and lifestyles. Although absent from our collective memory, Deborah Willis has dug through the archives and hunted down the remnants that tell the wonderful and tragic history of a people. Tackling all subjects with bravery and frankness, Deborah Willis’s work is a true treasure to behold.

    Black, A Celebration of a Culture, presents the vibrant panorama of 20th-century black culture in America and around the world. The photos tell one story that resonates throughout the world. Broken up into segments that examine in detail such subjects as children, work, art, beauty, Saturday night and Sunday morning, the photos detail the history and the evolution of a culture. Each photograph, hand-picked by Deborah Willis, America's leading historian of African-American photography, celebrates the world of music, art, fashion, sports, family, worship or play. With over 500 photographs from every time period from the birth of photography to the birth of hip hop, this book is a truly joyous exhibition of black culture. From Jessie Owens to Barry Bonds, Ella Fitzgerald to Halle Berry, Black: A Celebration of a Culture is joyous and inspiring.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSkyhorse
    Release dateNov 18, 2014
    ISBN9781629148748
    Black: A Celebration of a Culture
    Author

    Deborah Willis

    A photo historian, curator, and photographer, Deborah Willis is chair and professor of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Photography and Imaging. A Guggenheim, Fletcher, and MacArthur fellow, she lives in New York City.

    Read more from Deborah Willis

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    • 5/5
      Captivating snapshots of life from an African-American perspective. The book features pictures of Children, Everyday Life, Work, The Arts, Beauty, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, Sports, Portraits, Spirituality and Celebration. The pieces of life include photos of everyday folk as well as some famous people like Anna Maria Horsford as a child (she also wrote the Forward), Sanaa Lathan, Malcolm X with his children, and Joe Louis. I even found pictures of women in the small town I was raised in as well life photos from historic African American towns like Whitesboro, NJ. This book is a great conversation piece, stirs up memories almost like the smell of apple pie reminds me of my grandmother---a nice warm and fuzzy feeling from being able to identify with the variety of people represented, just living everyday life. Some of the photos are old, from the early 1900's and others are from the late 90's and early 2000's. Great book to have on your coffee table for all to see and browse through.

    Book preview

    Black - Deborah Willis

    Cover Page of BlackTitle Page of BlackTitle Page of Black

    Copyright ©2004 Hylas Publishing

    First Skyhorse Publishing Edition 2014

    All rights to any and all materials in copyright owned by the publisher are strictly reserved by the publisher.

    All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

    Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.

    www.skyhorsepublishing.com

    Cover design by Gus Woo

    Cover photo credit Anna Maria Horsford, Charles (Chuck) Stewart, Bruce Davidson, Wendy Philips, Chester Higgins, Jr.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

    Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-387-3

    Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62914-874-8

    Printed in China

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    FOREWORD

    INTRODUCTION

    CHILDREN

    EVERYDAY LIFE

    WORK

    THE ARTS

    BEAUTY

    SATURDAY NIGHT

    SUNDAY MORNING

    SPORTS

    PORTRAITS

    SPIRITUALITY

    CELEBRATION

    AFTERWORD

    INDEX

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    FOREWORD

    Chester Higgins Jr., On the Set of Soul, ca. 1972, © All rights reserved, Ellis Haizlip Collection, Archive Center, Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution

    Photographs tell compelling stories. Yes, I remember there was a time before the civil rights movement, the war on poverty and affirmative action. A time when every black neighborhood was not referred to as a ghetto. When discrimination was the expected . . . it was clear that both Northern and Southern black people and even the new immigrants from the West Indies and South America knew Their Place.

    The area around Lenox Avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-Second streets was one of those places. I was born in the hospital commonly known as Flowers Fifth Ave and brought back to my father’s brownstone. (Back then it was called a rooming house). My father had two small grocery stores. Next to one of the stores five other black-owned shops existed. The florist, the cleaners, the Laundromat, the funeral parlor, and—across the street—a Photo Studio. The Studio, GGG Photo Studio, was where James VanDerZee, artist and photographer, exhibited photographs of men and women in the window. I remember the treasured photograph of my father made by his friend and neighbor.

    Black folks created incredible distractions from the larger white world who didn’t want us to intrude their world. The black folks I knew wanted to insure our soul comfort. My dear mother’s goal was to make me a lady. What followed were many failed attempts of dance classes in interpretive, ballet and tap. Singing lessons, piano lessons and once-a-week trips to my godmother’s house to learn how to eat with a knife and fork, putting the pinky finger up, and blowing your soup before eating. My mother was born and raised in Santa Domingo in extremely poor conditions and it appears that she wanted her new life in America documented. She made her children dress up once a year to go to the Photographers Studio on 125th Street. At least twenty-five copies of each of our photos had to be sent to every island where we had cousins and grandmothers and friends. Because my father was a business owner we had to participate in the Tom Thumb Weddings and the yearly fashion shows held at the Renaissance Ballroom, as well as bus outings at Bear Mountain or the Father’s Day Boat Outing. I don’t know if there is another nationality that sponsored cocktail sips and the church school recitals where if you could recite James Weldon Johnson’s The Creation with hand movements, you were guaranteed a standing ovation. This experience—the uniqueness of the black experience—is revealed in Deborah Willis’s Black: A Celebration of a Culture.

    In the 1970s, I had the good fortune of working on SOUL. This was a production of WNET/13, the educational television station out of New York City and broadcasted on the national feed to all the PBS stations after the first year. Producer Ellis B. Haizlip developed it after the 1968 riots. The riots clearly pointed out the many wrongs in American society and SOUL was designed to expose both black and white television viewers to the richness of our cultural history. SOUL was the first and the largest audience many of these black artists had. This book reflects my own past. It visualizes my memory of family stories and moments such as when Alvin Ailey’s Dance Theatre had their first hour-long special on SOUL; the debut of George Faison Universal Dance Theatre’s ballets Slave Ship and Suite OTIS (a tribute to Otis Redding’s music); Nikki Giovanni reading her poetry accompanied by a fifty-voice gospel choir; Toni Morrison reading from her first novel; musician Rashaan Roland Kirk stunning the studio audience as well as the millions who witnessed him play five saxophones at the same time. Ellis spoke to so many people who changed history but were kept silent by the mass media; asking questions that no one would even think of asking to Muhammad Ali, Minister Louis Farrakhan, and Mrs. Betty Shabazz. Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis

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