‘Shaft’? We’re Talking About Gordon Parks … and We Can Dig It
A look at how the photographer translated his humanistic view of urban crime to the silver screen.
Artists of Color as Avatars of Originality and Brilliance
Elia Alba reimagines artists of color as A-list celebrities, giving them a place of honor in a mainstream art world that continues to ignore or downplay their accomplishments.
This Photo of a 7-Year-Old Girl Transformed the Abolition Movement
Abolitionists used a daguerreotype of Mary Mildred Williams, a light-skinned black girl born into slavery, to win over potentially sympathetic white Americans during the 19th century.
Bearing Witness to Jim Crow in Mississippi With Uncompromising Candor
Florence Mars captured a fading but no less virulent racial order in Mississippi, when forces beyond its control were gradually dismantling the state’s system of legalized segregation.
Intimate Photos of Community and Resilience in New York’s Chinatown in the 1980s
As waves of immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China arrived in Lower Manhattan, Bud Glick documented Chinatown and provided much needed detail and context for a community often reduced to clichés.
Zanele Muholi: Paying Homage to the History of Black Women
Through self-portraits, Zanele Muholi reimagines black identity and challenges the oppressive standards of beauty that often ignore people of color.
The Holocaust’s Paradox of Good and Evil, in Photographs
In her dark and evocative images, Judy Glickman Lauder explores the contrast between the reality of hate, the possibility of defeating it and photography’s role in spurring change.
Capturing the Struggle for Racial Equality, Past and Present
Sheila Pree Bright chronicles the longstanding and continuing legacy of black activism in her new book, “#1960Now.”
Reclaiming an old medium to tell new stories of Native Americans
These artists are using a historic photography method to shape modern-day narratives.
Gordon Parks on Poverty, the ‘Most Savage of Human Afflictions’
Mr. Parks realized the power of empathy to help people understand poverty. In this 1961 photo essay, he took readers inside the lives of a Brazilian boy, Flavio da Silva, and his family, who lived in a favela in the hills outside Rio de Janeiro.
The Quiet Heroism of Arthur Ashe
John G. Zimmerman's photos of Arthur Ashe, the first black man to win a singles title at the United States Open, represented the athlete as he lived: a complex and self-possessed man in the midst of a life-altering event.
Chronicling the Virtuosity and Struggles of 1970s Soul and Funk Musicians
Bruce W. Talamon photographed some of music’s brightest stars for a decade. He considers himself “a visual caretaker of black folks’ history.”
Revealing the Lives of Black Fathers
Robyn Price Pierre looked to her family, classmates and friends to create personal photos exploring black fatherhood.
Escaping to Freedom, in the Shadows of the Night
A new series by the photographer Dawoud Bey summons a time in African-American history when the journey to freedom was made largely under cover of night.
These 1970s Pageants Celebrated Black Women's Beauty
For some women in West London’s Afro-Caribbean communities, beauty pageants nurtured racial pride and self-expression.
50 Years After Their Mug Shots, Portraits of Mississippi’s Freedom Riders
The journalist and photographer Eric Etheridge provides visual and oral histories of the courageous men and women known as the Freedom Riders in the 1960s.
These Reenactments Put a Personal Face on the History of Black Protest
By reimagining historic scenes of black struggle in Africa and around the world, artist Omar Victor Diop explores what unifies these fights for freedom.
Dr. King’s Complex Relationship With the Camera
The most compelling photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were neither idealized nor simplistic, but endeavored to portray his complexity and humanity.
Documenting the Dynamic Black Community of 1940s Seattle
In the 1940s, Al Smith documented a heroic period for Seattle jazz in the integrated establishments of Jackson Street, where African-American performers and customers were embraced.
An Elegy to India’s Vanishing Cinemas
Nandita Raman spent three years photographing the decline of India’s single-screen movie houses for her series “Cinema Play House.”
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