Black Photojournalism

New York City has always been a hotbed for documentary photography. In the final episode of this podcast, we hear from four members of the illustrious Kamoigne Workshop–Ming Smith, Adger Cowans, Shawn Walker, and Anthony Barboza–speaking about their more than six decades of experience. Marilyn Nance also talks about her time working in the city as well as a trip to Lagos, Nigeria in 1972 to cover...

John H. Johnson and his wife Eunice printed the first issue of EBONY magazine, one of the most influential Black publications in history, in November 1945. This episode features stories about the Johnson Publishing Company as told by their daughter, Linda Johnson Rice. We also hear from two artists, David Hartt and Theaster Gates, about the influence of the magazine on their work and the ways in w...

This episode covers a broad swath of the American South ranging from the work of Ernest Withers in Memphis, Tennessee as discussed by his daughter Rosalind Withers, to Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas where Bob Ray Sanders and Norma Adams Wade talk about their extensive experiences working in the newspaper business. — Image Credit:  Ernest C. Withers (b. 1922, Memphis, TN; d. 2007, Memphis, TN) , Dr....

There are two different stories in this episode—the first is rooted in Southern California, where Bruce Talamon got his start photographing the legends of R&B and soul in the 70s and 80s. The other takes us further north, in and around Oakland, where filmmaker Stanley Nelson documented the Black Panthers as they became their own image-makers, using the power of art and design to build a moveme...

In this episode, photographer Clinton Wright talks about what it was like to move to and photograph Las Vegas in the 1960s and 70s, a time when many casinos were still segregated. Aaron Mayes and Claytee White, who work with Wright’s archive at the UNLV Libraries Special Collection help situate these photographs within the historical context of Civil Rights activism in Las Vegas.  — Cover Image: C...

Dr. Frances “Toni” Murphy Draper and artist Savannah Wood talk about the history of Baltimore’s AFRO American Newspaper and their family’s ownership of the paper that dates back five generations to 1892. Today, the AFRO holds more than three million photographs in its archive which it is seeking to make public in a new visitor center in the Upton neighborhood.   — Image: unidentified photographer,...

In the first episode, artist Hank Willis Thomas talks about growing up in a household that hosted numerous Black photojournalists and how that influenced his practice. Host Mark Whitaker and Charlene Foggie-Barnett, community archivist for the Charles “Teenie” Harris archive, discuss their personal connections to Pittsburgh and the rich Black history of the city.