Fourteen years and a stroke later, Silicon Valley photographer Sherrie Green returns to a project that had been laying underneath her bed since 1998. Originally a project undertaken in order to graduate from Hartnell College, Ms. Green’s photo collection offers an unique insight into the African-American leaders of the Monterey County during the 1990s.
Stroke pushes Silicon Valley photographer to reveal her gift to African-American history
Mercury News
Joe Rodriguez
Posted: 06/22/2012
“After suffering a stroke, the first thing Sherrie Green did when she returned home from a hospital was retrieve a special stack of photos that had been gathering dust for years.”
“In the late 1990s, Green took striking portraits of 28 prominent African-American leaders in the Monterey Bay area. Though few in numbers, blacks were hugely influential in government and civic affairs. Nobody else is known to have captured images of the area’s black leadership quite like Green.”
“‘I’m amazed to see the level of accomplishment of the people in the collection,’ said Helen Rucker, a retired teacher, a local college trustee, an officer with the local NAACP branch and one of Green’s subjects. ‘Wow, she did a lot of homework.'”
“Ruthie Watts, coordinator of Black History Month events for the Monterey Bay NAACP, had only heard a description of the collection when she declared, ‘I’d love to have it.'”
“‘It’s my legacy, [Green] says. ‘It’s a record for humanity. I want to leave it as a historical record of black people and for young people of all groups, not just blacks. You have to ask them, ‘Who’s going to remember and record your community’s history if not you?””
The full Mercury News article can be found here: http://bit.ly/MXQRmW.
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