"A Small Nation of People: W. E. B. Du Bois and African American Portraits of Progress"
Photographic exhibit in conjunction with the "Dissent: Past & Present" series.
Co-sponsored by the Franklin Humanities Institute and the John Hope Franklin Center.
January 9 - March 12, 2004
Main Gallery, John Hope Franklin Center
(Press Coverage)
Deborah Willis, Ph.D. (Curator)
Professor of Photography and Imaging/Africana Studies
New York University
In 1900, the sociologist W.E.B. DuBois was invited to participate in the Paris Exposition Universelle by his friend Thomas Calloway, the special agent for the Exposition, whose intention was to show "ten things concerning the negroes in America since their emancipation.." Du Bois' selection--photographs that were remarkable, in his words, for the variety of their "delicate beauty [and] tone"--revealed his understanding of the power of photography to create a new and revised self-image for African Americans. The images he chose which focused on African Americans from Georgia portrayed an African American community that was spiritually, socially, and economically diverse.
Rather than showing the travails of African Americans, Du Bois intended to represent their progress, in accord with the Paris Exposition's theme. Through 363 photographs by an undetermined number of photographers, some well known and some anonymous, he presented the "typical" educated black child, businesswoman, and businessman. The images reflected a sense of racial pride and the beginnings of the notion of a New Negro aesthetic. DuBois believed that defining beauty within black culture through photography was a significant step in the fight against racist representations, and he used photography as a kind of empowering the image of black Americans.
As a sociologist, Du Bois' main interest in the section of the exhibit that focused on Georgia was in the conditions of black Americans since the end of slavery. The photographs he chose included many of well-dressed, self-conscious young men and women: unidentified students and leading members of the Atlanta community as well as portraits of their sons and daughters. By presenting unidentified portraits that showed the diverse skin colors of black Americans, DuBois used the power of photography to illustrate a reality rarely acknowledged at international expositions at that time.
The selected forty-five photographs in the exhibit shows the New Negro's desire to achieve middle-class status, a desire that ran in direct opposition to the human displays found in previous world fairs and expositions. The photographs of the Georgia Negro were placed within the display of the American Negro Exhibit which showed photographs of black education institutions, black owned businesses and homes in North Carolina , Florida and Washington , D.C. The term "New Negro" came to represent a spirit of self-awareness, artistic consciousness, and racial pride that arose in black communities after 1900, and it was reflected in different media, including art, print, artifacts, photography, and film. The New Negro movement believed that all men and women were created equal and was prepared to offer a broader visualization to prove it.
The photographs Du Bois selected were powerful and engaging portraits that enabled the viewer to see how African Americans used the studio photographer to redefine themselves. Du Bois not only used the camera as a collector of evidence to support his sociological findings, but also as a way of challenging his audience to reexamine their notions of the Southern black.