Black Image Makers

(jazz music) - [Announcer] On this episode of Movers and Makers, black image makers throughout history, discover the vast African-American collection, at the country's oldest library.

Artists, Johnny Dowell takes us South, to experience the horror and beauty of cotton.

Celebrate joy and struggle, and the photographs of Jack T. Franklin, and capture the ongoing struggle for civil rights, with photographer, Isaac Scott.

(jazz music continues) - Welcome to the show.

I'm your host, Andrew Erace.

In 1976, the year of our country's bicentennial, the African-American Museum in Philadelphia, opened at the Corner of Seventh at Arch Street.

It became the first city funded museum in the country, dedicated to preserving and interpreting black life.

For over 40 years, the museum has hosted exhibitions and events, that touch on all aspects, of the African-American experience, from the colonial era to present day.

(jazz music continues) Today's episode celebrates black image makers, from our region whose work and body struggle, perseverance and joy.

From painting to photography, we meet artists who deepen our understanding, of the lived experiences of black Americans, past and present.

(mellow African music) (soft violin music) - People are worried about our government.

People are worried about democracy.

People are worried about our whole system, of voting and elections.

We were the library that the people, who've wrote the declaration of independence used.

We were the library, the people who wrote the constitution used.

(soft violin music continues) We have a painting here, that was commissioned by The Library Company, at around the same time as Philadelphia, was the Capitol of the United States.

And the artist asks, "Do you want this painting to show history, or knowledge presenting their gifts to the new nation?"

And the directors of Library Company said, "No, we don't want that.

We want it to be a symbol of Liberty.

A woman representing Liberty, presenting knowledge to freed slaves."

(soft violin music continues) Library Company was founded by Ben Franklin in 1731.

But before it was a library, it was a group of people who got together every week, to learn from each other, and to talk about the business of the day, news, but they also talked about history and philosophy.

And over time they began talking a lot about books.

And so Franklin had the idea of, "Well what if we all chipped in some money, bought books together and then any member of the company, could then borrow the books and return them."

The connection between knowledge and freedom, was explicit and really important.

This became a place where people could learn about, the cruelties and injustices of slavery, beyond what they might be reading in newspapers.

That isn't to say that there weren't slave owners, among the early founders of the library company.

Ben Franklin himself owned slaves.

We had people on both sides of the issue.

It was known at the time and important at the time, as a knowledge resource for people who wanted to learn, what was really going on with slavery.

One of the greatest acts of violence, perpetrated on African-Americans in the slave trade.

Yes, there's the physical violence that we think of.

But one of the greatest acts of violence, was the tearing away of people from their history.

The history that was taken from them, was an incredibly rich history, deepen its own culture, deepen its own practices.

- The first piece that I'll point out is a 1682 manuscript, that's written in the ancient language of Greece, on goat skin paper.

- [Michael] It's a beautiful item.

And we use it in a lot of our publicity materials.

It has not been displayed very often, than Ethiopian Coptic Christian manuscript.

It has beautiful illustration.

- The one thing that I think is very important, about this piece is that the colors are very vibrant, and it's in really good condition to be from the mid 1680s.

- The pages are incredibly bright.

The calligraphy is gorgeous on it.

The illustrations are beautiful.

It's an item that helps to remind people of the rich, and important culture that Africans were taken from, when they were brought to this country.

(melancholic music) - The other piece that is popular in this collection, is the "Carte De Visite" of Sojourner Truth, that she actually used in order for her to sell, to raise funds for her Abolition Movement.

- [Michael] We were a place where abolitionist material, and materials relating, to the experience of African-Americans, were collected and shared.

(melancholic music continues) So we have these fantastic albums, that are called Friendship Albums.

They are albums, that these middle-class African-American women kept.

If you had someone visiting you, you'd have them leave a little poem or paint a picture, as a way of a memento of their visit.

And they would often be exchanged and mailed back and forth.

- [Jasmine] This one spans from like the 1830s, I believe up until the 1850s.

It was owned by Amy Matilda Cassey, who was a abolitionist, and a prominent African-American leader during the time, and was important, with the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society.

And majority of the people in here, were involved in the Abolitionist Movement.

There are a lot of Anti-Slavery pieces in here.

This particular piece was written by Frederick Douglas, (melancholic music continues) William Lloyd Garrison, who was also a abolitionists of the time.

His piece was actually one of the longest pieces in here.

This piece here was done by Sarah Mapps Douglas.

- Really prominent Philadelphian artist, and also abolitionists, despite every kind of racially oppressive thing, that's going on in the United States in the 19th century, here she is drawing a flower.

I think when people think about black folk who lived, especially during the era of slavery, that everything that they represented, was just about their oppression.

And I'm like, but they were human beings.

And so human beings also have to experience pleasure.

- I think too, about the Carsons.

They're using Quill and to think about like, having to dip it in ink, and then kind of very carefully writing it.

- Like splotches of ink on the page, right?

- So there are all these moments of pause, that have to happen, because of the forms of technology that they're using.

You have to love your handwriting, to have handwriting that beautiful.

(soft violin music) - [Michael] Our responsibilities, and being keepers of this collection extend beyond just keeping it safe, and making it available to people.

I think the library company, has a very important role to play, in getting people excited about being Americans, and getting people participating in the political process, without being political, but in reminding people about where our country came from, and what are the it's best principles, that we now can use our role as citizens, to try to get our country on track.

(cool music) (cool African music) (rock music) - This is what I was told was perfect cotton.

Do you see that star on it, on the bud?

It holds that pod close, and then the cotton can build and build and build.

And then it breaks and it pops up.

The pod around the cotton on the edge of it, becomes hard and sharp.

When we had the pick, you had to grab that without scratching yourself, because you can't get blood on.

♪ I'll be so glad when the sun go down ♪ ♪ When the sun go down ♪ - I have a grandmother.

Her big mommy, she'd been dead 45 years.

And all of a sudden I started dreaming about her.

She used to talk to me about cotton, and things that happened to her to cotton, At the time I just so happened was having a show, at the Telfair Museum in Savannah.

And so I went four days early, and got named to three farmers.

And the first farmer said, I never forget it.

He said, "But you're a photographer of the city.

What, you wanna photograph cotton?"

I says, "Yeah," I says, "I was just in North Dakota photographing corn."

He said, "You photographing live corn?"

(laughs) I photographed for three days and I got emotional.

I still get emotional.

And on the second day I just broke down and cried.

And one morning went up.

I said, "Look at that.

Look at the dew on the cotton."

He said, "Oh my God."

He had never seen it.

And he says, "You're really showing it's beautiful.

It is, the dangerous beautiful plant but it's beautiful."

And he says, "This has been in my family seven generations."

And it hit me, big mommy took me home.

(soft rock music) (soft piano music) I was introduced to art 'cause I had an older brother, and whatever he did, I did.

And he was copying comic books.

So I copied comic books.

I did the school art league on Saturday mornings, and sculpture and a little bit of painting.

And then I was in Central High School, and I was an art major.

And then I went to Tyler.

I was a split major, ceramics and printmaking.

All of a sudden I was in Los Angeles.

This is right out of school.

And what was so crazy about it, was I got on an airplane terrified, and I went and they would pay me $ 100 a week.

I was learning how to print and an artist would come in, but it would be Sam Francis, Louise Nevelson, David Hockney, Nathan Oliveira that I'd be working with.

And I was right out of school.

I was like, whoo.

And by the time I got ready to apply for a job, there was only two of us trained this way in the country.

I had 14 interviews.

I was flown all over the country.

I'd walk in one place.

And I'm in an Ivy league, gray suit, with a matching portfolio.

I'm clean, wing tips and everything.

And they still think, "What are you delivering?"

That might come up with something else for this, but I liked that shot.

Around 2005 I started using a camera.

I said, "I'm not going to draw the city.

I can photograph the city."

Now that starts looking interesting.

(jazz music) I started documenting Harlem, 'cause it was disappearing and being gentrified.

(jazz music continues) I happened to go by the historical society, and I walk in and there's a book on a shelf.

It says, "Slavery In New York."

I said, "Slavery In New York?

I've been going down South risking my life that she just got into much slavery here?"

I started making images.

Show the past and the present.

And then I would superimpose, something that referred back to that time on it.

Seneca village, an area that was mixed.

But around 1857, they condemned the area, and took all the property for Central Park.

And then I started finding out, things about Washington Square.

(jazz music continues) Wall Street had the second largest slave market, in the country.

And of course, Wall Street completely financed the whole thing.

(jazz music continues) Had the big show at AAM.

And I got a chance to talk.

And very few people knew about Seneca village.

They've never heard about it.

And I've been mixing photographs of Harlem, and putting cotton in 'em.

One afternoon I haven't discovered at 125th Street, in Adam Clayton Powell, they were dancing.

And I just shot and shot and shot.

And in several pieces I put cotton.

They said, "It's not right.

Emit cotton."

(jazz music continues) Romare Bearden did a very famous painting, called, "The Block."

And the block that was the subject matter of the painting, I photograph that block.

I'm proud of that photograph.

That's me.

(laughs) - [Interviewer] 20, 30, 40 years from now, and people are looking at the work of Johnny Dowell.

What do you want them to get from it?

- I want them to be knocked out by the visual.

And they might pick up the story.

(jazz music continues) But the story is not more important than the image.

I don't sacrifice the image for the story.

Lots of pieces that blown strange cotton.

And I call them, "The Angels Are Coming."

- My goodness, that is beautiful.

Angels are coming, right?

Whoa, you can just hear a song, ♪ We're leaving this place 'cause the angels are coming ♪ ♪ And I don't know if this' an angel of death or life ♪ (laughs) (jazz music continues) (soft African music) - I must face the fact that it is a sad experience, at this stage of the 20th century, to have to stand in the city, that has been known as the cradle of liberty, that has in its midst and in its presence, a kind of Berlin wall, to keep the colored children of God out.

- Girard College happened on May 1st, 1965.

I don't know how Jack knew about that, because it was supposed to be a secret.

Jack was there constantly.

So he shot this day and it was a beautiful photograph, because these policemen in their uniforms.

The Top Brass were there and it was kind of cool.

But at the same time he also shot the brutality, of some of the things that broke out, while they were demonstrating, for that seven months and 17 days.

And he shot things all around the city, from an observance point of view, not from a participant's point of view.

It was a beautiful way that was there.

(slow rock music) - Jack's photographs, he photographed Sammy Davis Jr, Harry Belafonte.

He photographed the known people and the community people, the lawyers, the domestic workers.

And not from afar.

He was right next to them.

So he was in lockstep with the people in the community, and the noted figures in the larger world.

So when we think about the notion of, Black Lives Matter as a movement, he knew it then.

- Some times he was on the ground, at the March on Washington.

(slow rock music continues) From Selma to Montgomery.

(slow rock music continues) But he also was there for small acts of resistance, that happened in Philadelphia every day.

Those are the moments that 50-100 years down the road, it becomes arguable if those moments ever existed, without this documentation.

And we can't let our history become arguable.

(slow rock music continues) There are actually a half million images in the collection, which is just staggering and amazing.

You think about one person taking this many photographs.

And that includes not only the prints, but there's contact sheets, negatives, slides.

There's even some ephemera that he collected over the years, From different events that he attended.

Different pamphlets and programs and things like that.

So it really does take a complete picture, of the life of this very important photographer.

(slow jazz music) Jeff Franklin was born in 1922 in Philadelphia.

He went to Simon Gratz High School.

He actually joined the army right out of high school, and was a photographer during World War II, while serving in the army.

It was when he returned back to Philadelphia, that he started doing staff and freelance work, for the different publications throughout the city.

These are the publications that were, how we really understood, what was happening in the black communities.

It was not through the mass media.

It was through the "Tribune" and "Jet" and "Ebony."

Jack Franklin was making those images accessible, from the beginning.

(slow jazz music continues) - When you have a calling, you have to do it.

This is a photo of my uncle Vincent, my uncle Jackie's older brother, and here is uncle Jackie in his glory.

We knew that there was gonna be a Black Panther Rally, my uncle Jackie would be there.

We knew if someone was having their 70th birthday, he would be there.

He was always trying to get the best shot.

And he was going wherever there was a shot to be taken.

I think he was interested in people, because we came from a family, where everyone was interested in people.

You had to socialize.

You belong to a church.

You belong to a community and you did volunteer works.

So that's part of his birth DNA.

- Jack allowed people to be the witness to the event.

He has photographs where people can look at them, and pick themselves out from 20 years ago.

I've seen pictures of myself in 1964, 65' in a reception somewhere in the audience, talking to someone.

So there was no boundary that Jack set aside to say, "I'm not going to go beyond this point."

Jack didn't have any boundaries, in the way he approached people with his camera.

(soft jazz music) - I think he thought that he should give those photographs, and let people decide if they really meant something, to black history.

Should they be taken seriously?

We took them seriously, but should the world take them seriously?

And he wouldn't let the future decide, if his stuff was relevant or not.

- It's relevant.

It is relevant to our mission.

It's relevant and it's also important, that we honor ourselves that way.

People are of value regardless of their commercial value.

People have an intrinsic human value.

And I think the man on the street going to work, or people getting off from work, tired at the end of the day, they're valuable, to the continuity of our experience as people.

So when you can see people about their business, of being human beings, Jack's collection is full of that kind of stuff.

You find nothing but people who are people being people.

(soft jazz music continues) (soft African music) - In today's profile we sit down with a photographer, who's carrying on the legacy of those like Jack Franklin, to document and amplify the struggle for justice.

After the murder of George Floyd last Spring, local artist, Isaac Scott took up his camera, as both an active documentation and resistance.

(soft African music continues) (melancholic music) - I'm Isaac Scott and I am a ceramic artist, a photographer, a curator and an organizer.

And I'm a student here, at Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

(melancholic music continues) Once the shutdown happened, I had just started going on walks, and just bring my camera with me, and just photographing things in my neighborhood.

And then once George Floyd got murdered, the protest started around the country.

And then I just brought my camera, just like I would normally do to the protest here in Philly.

And it was a wild day.

Glasses getting smashed.

Cop cars are on fire.

There's riot police out.

It was just a really wild and tensed day.

After that I knew I had to stay out there with my camera.

(melancholic music continues) - [Boy] And everyone saying the police, is supposed to protect and serve, right?

- [Protesters] Uh-huh - How are we supposed to trust them?

How are we supposed to trust the police, when they kill these men in their backs, when they're trying to sell a dirt bike?

How are we supposed to trust them?

How?

- [Man] How old are you little man?

- [Boy] I'm 11 years old.

- A third straight day of protest in Philadelphia.

The national guard is now patrolling the streets, after protesters outnumbered city and state police there, over the weekend.

MSNBC host, Ayman Mohyeldin in Philadelphia.

Ayman, what is it like there now?

- [Isaac] There's certain things, I feel like you don't really see in the media.

- (mumbles) - I mean, you don't really see those like, really up close shots of the people.

A lot of times you might see some drone footage, or you might see the background of a reporter, who's kind of like often to the side.

And I just think you lose a little bit of the humanity, of the people who are like actually participating.

And I just wanted it to capture that.

I wanted to see up close police officers in riot gear, or demonstrators or if people are getting tear gassed.

You gotta really see the pain in people's eyes.

So this is the camera I've been using.

It's a Nikon D7000 and has a zoom lens on it, 18-55 millimeter.

Yeah, I don't really know what else to say about it.

- [Interviewer] That's not even a very powerful zoom.

- No.

- You're getting really close-- - Oh yes, I actually get really close.

There's been a time I walked (laughs) and there's like a barricade, and I walked like directly up to the police officer, and I take a picture from like this far away.

Or like the military people, they've got rifles and stuff.

Yeah, it's kind of tensed.

One time it was on my first day of protest, and there's these police in riot gear.

They came charging into a crowd, and I was standing right in front of them.

And then people started yelling, white bodies to the front.

And these little white young women, just came right in front of me and started linking arms, and they stopped the police in their tracks.

And it was a really wild moment, 'cause I was like, "These guys are about to just charge right into me, with their clubs and everything."

And one of those shots, actually ended up in "The New Yorker."

It was a really crazy experience.

It went from them calling me, I think it was on a Wednesday and the following Monday, the piece came out in "The New Yorker."

I don't think it's completely sunk in yet.

(melancholic music) I think it's really important for us, as people in the movement, to be telling our own stories right now, and not allow other people's to control the narrative.

'Cause when history looks back on us, we definitely want to make sure it's told accurately.

And we want our voices not to just be heard now, but to be told to generations after us.

I've been to as many protests that I can get to.

And sometimes the media isn't there.

Sometimes there's these smaller events that happen, that the media doesn't really cover.

I'm really trying to present people, in this monumental way.

I take a lot of low angle shots, to make people seem big, important.

And even if there's only 20 people at a protest, I want to present it as if it's like this monumental event, so that these actions, these events, are given the respect and space that they deserve.

(melancholic music continues) I just want them to see the humanity in the people, that are participating.

I feel like a lot of times the way it's described, it's either these Antifa terrorists, or Black Lives Matter terrorists or something where it's very scary, or violent or destructive.

And for the most part people are just wanting to be heard.

There's just people who have been harmed by the status quo.

And so we have to change.

And I hope my photos help people see that.

(melancholic music continues) (jazz music) - The powerful exhibit rendering justice, at the African-American Museum, offers a contemporary look into longstanding problems, and is available online at aampmuseum.org.

In partnership with the Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia, the exhibition showcases, the work of formerly incarcerated artists, who reflect on a broad range of issues, rooted in mass incarceration.

Like all of the work showcased today, this exhibit is a testimony, to the enduring storytelling power of images.

We hope you enjoyed today's special episode.

I'm your host, Andrew Erace and I'll see you next time for more Movers and Makers.

(jazz music continues)