“To commemorate the 120th anniversary of the Afro-American newspaper, the second longest running black periodical in the United States, this pictorial exhibition features 120 images from the Afro’s archive collections that demonstrate the vital role young people played in African American history. This exhibition is curated by the Afro- American newspaper staff, in coordination with the Reginald F. Lewis Museum.”
– from the Reginald F. Lewis Museum website
The Growing Up AFRO: Snapshots of Black Childhood from the Afro-American Newspapers exhibition runs from June 23 to December 30, 2012.
Robert Boykin makes sure the news reaches Philadelphia readers, Philadelphia, PA, c. 1953
About the Exhibit:
Black Life in Black and White
Baltimore City Paper
By Evan Serpick
July 4, 2012
“THE 120 BLACK-AND-WHITE photographs that make up most of this absorbing new exhibit ostensibly tell the story of the 120-year-old Afro-American newspaper franchise, which started in Baltimore in 1892 and spread throughout the East Coast.”
“But more than that, they warmly display the vitality of urban African-American communities in mid-century America through pictures of young people. There are nods to the brutal racism and discrimination that the community endured through much of the 1900s (though there are no depictions of endemic poverty that was also part of the story); but the exhibit focuses more on the strong communal and familial bonds that helped black communities endure and overcome, rather than focusing on the obstacles themselves.”
Newsboy Oliver E. Boykins on his route in 1953
“[T]he exhibit shows a much more pleasant, mundane, day-to-day reality that is often forgotten when the African-American experience of the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s is depicted. There are students napping on cots during rest time at city schools; crowds of kids, some integrated, some not, at playgrounds, at recreation centers, at swimming pools; and children sledding down hills behind rowhouses. There are graduations, May Day celebrations, and lots of youngsters dressed to the nines, in white gloves and bonnets, on Easter Sunday.”
“And you get the sense it is this reality that older African-American visitors refer to when they write messages in the guest book like. ‘This exhibit brings back so many memories,’ and ‘I was transported to my childhood with every shot.’”
Clean Blockers find it easy to smile after a hard day's work, Washington, DC c. 1943
“The African-American community in mid-century urban America is often portrayed as being dominated by anger, unrest, hard lives, and constant struggle. The pictures and papers in Growing Up Afro paint a different picture, one that strikes a chord of truth. It shows a community slowly, carefully pushing its way into a new world while still carrying on with the everyday lives of its members as men, women, and children.”
For the full article on the exhibition, see here: http://bit.ly/LlBpfh
For more information on the exhibition and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, visit: http://www.africanamericanculture.org/home.html
And for more information on the AFRO American newspaper, visit: http://www.afro.com/afroblackhistoryarchives/
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