To some, photojournalism, and documentary photography riding shotgun, has been the most noble of photographic genres, with the presumption of fact and evidence and the medium as reliable, objective witness. In its heyday throughout the last century, photography in newspapers and magazines advanced a shared visual literacy and galvanized social change and a promise of democratic commonality from the ubiquitous corner newsstand.
Black Photojournalism honors this considerable photographic legacy and the archives of the vigorous Black American communities from the end of World War II to the 1984 Presidential race of Jesse Jackson. Although American cities could often boast a half dozen broadsheets and tabloids in both morning and afternoon editions, people of color were excluded from the news except in routine characterization as criminal, immoral, or, at best, of little interest. Black-founded newspapers and periodicals in this celebratory post-war culture were a corrective, providing equitable coverage to the Black community. Along with the products of Johnson Publishing, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Afro American News (“You Know Because You Read the Afro”), and the Atlanta Daily World were among dozens of Black-owned newspapers whose robust circulations affirm their significance. Adding to these mainstream publications, the Black Panther, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Muhammad Speaks (with the highest circulation of 600,000) were of formidable bandwidth in the news of the day.
Through exhaustive and admirable research by Carnegie Museum curator Dan Leers and community archivist Charlene Foggie-Barnett, Black Photojournalism is a garrulous exhibition encompassing three soaring galleries and of exuberant staging. The show acclaims the making of the photograph as a form of activism, of an empowerment and self-representation that photography advances. And the photographic archive—of which much activity and consideration is currently made—proves to be an inexhaustible repository of pictorial and cultural information. The exhibition grandly affirms philosopher Jacques Derrida’s assertion that “There is no political power without control of the archive.”
