In Our Glory:

Photography and Black Life

hooks, bell. Art on My Mind: Visual Politics.

New York: The New Press. 54-64.
AL w A Y s A daddy's girl. I was not surprised. that my sister V. became a
lesbian, or that her lovers were always white women. Her worship of
Daddy and her passion for whiteness appeared to affirm a movement
away from black womanhood and, of course, away from that image of the
woman we did not want to become-our mother. The only family photo-
graph V. displays in her house is a picture of our dad, looking young with
a mustache. His dark skin mingling with the shadows in the photograph.
All of which is highlighted by the white T-shirt he wears.
In this snapshot he is standing by a pool table. The look on his face
is confident, seductive, cool-a look we rarely saw growing up. I have
no idea who took the picture, only that it pleases me to imagine that
he cared for the person-deeply. There is such boldness, such fierce
openness in the way he faces rhe camera. This snapshot was taken
before marriage, before us, his seven children, before our presence ifl
his life forced him to leave behind the carefree masculine identity this
pose conveys.
The fact that my sister V. possesses this image of our dad, one that I
had never seen before, merely affirms their romance, the bond between
the two of them. They had the dreamed-about closeness between father
and daughter, or so it seemed. Her possession of fhe snapshot confirms
this, is an acknowledgment that she is allowed to know-yes, even to
possess-that private life he always kept to himself. When we were chil-
dren, he refused to answer our questions about who he was, how he acted,
what he did and felt before us. It was as though he did not want to
remember or share that part of himself, as though remembering hurt.
Standing before this snapshot, I come closer to the cold, distant, dark
man who is my father, closer than I can ever come in real life. Not always
able to love him there, I am sure I can love this version of him) the snap-
shot. I gave it a title: "in his glory."
 IN OUR GLORY: PHOTOGRAPHY AND BLACK LH-"- ))I

Snapshot of Veodis Watkins. 1949. Courtesy of bell hooks. Photographer

unknown.

Before leaving my sister's place, I plead with her to make a copy of this
picture for my birthday. She says she will, but it never comes. For Christ-
mas, then. It's on the way. I surmise that my passion for it surprises her,
makes her hesitate. My rival in childhood-she always winning, the pos-
sessor of Dad's affection-she wonders whether to give that up, whether
she is ready tO share. She hesitates to give me the man in the snapshot.,
After all, had he wanted me to see him this way, "in his glory," he would
have given me the picture.
My younger sister G. calls. For Christmas, V. has sent her a "horrible
photograph" of Dad. There is outrage in her voice as she says, "It's dis-
gusting. He's not even wearing a.shirt) just an old white undershirt." G.
keeps repeating, "I don't know why she has sent this picture to me." She
has no difficulty promising to give me her copy if mine does not arrive.
Her lack of interest in the photograph saddens me. When she was the age
our dad is in the picture, she looked just like him. She had his beauty
then, the same shine of glory and pride. Is this the face of herself that she
has forgotten) does not want to be reminded of, because time has taken
such glory away? Unable to fathom how she cannot be drawn to this pic-
ture, I ponder what this image suggests to her that she cannot tolerate: a
 56 ART ON MY MIND IN OlJR GT.ORY; PHOTOGRAPHY AND BLACK LIFE 57

grown black man having a good time, playing a game, having a drink away from home, from a small town to my first big city, I needed the secu-
maybe, enjoying himself without the company of women. rity of this image. I packed it carefully. I wanted Lovie, cousin Schuyler's
Although my sisters and I look at this snapshot and see the same man, we wife, to see me "in my glory." I remember giving her the snapshot for
do not see him in the same way. Our "reading" and experience of this image safekeeping: only, when it was time for me to return home) it could not be
is shaped by our relationship with him, with the world of childhood and the found. This was for me a terrible loss, an irreconcilable grief. Gone was
images that make our lives what they are now. I want to rescue and preserve _ the image of myself I could love. Losing that snapshot, I lost the proof of
this image of our father, not let it be forgotten. It allows me to understand my worthiness-that I had ever been a bright-eyed child capable of won-
him, provides a way for me co know him that makes it possible to love him der-the proof that there was a "me of me."
again, despite all the other images, the ones that stand in the way oflove. The image in this snapshot has lingered in my mind's eye for years. It
f Such is the power of the photograph, of the image, that it can give back bas lingered there to remind me of the power of snapshots, of the image.
and take away, that it can bind. This snapshot ofVeodis Watkins, our As] slowly complete a book of essays titled Art on My Mind, I think about
father, sometimes called Ned or Leakey in his younger days, gives me a the place of art in black life, connections between the social construction
space for intimacy between the image and myself, between me and Dad. I of black identity, the impact of race and class, and the presence in black
am captivated, seduced by it, the way other images have caught and held life of an inarticulate but ever-present visual aesthetic governing our
me, embraced me like arms that would not let go. relationship to images) to the process of image making. I return to the
Struggling in childhood with the image of myself as unworthy of love, snapshot as a starring point to consider the place of the visual in black
I could nor see myself beyond all the received images, which simply rein- life-the importance of photography. ,..
forced my sense of unworthiness. Those ways of seeing myself came from Cameras gave to black folks, irrespective of class, a means by which we ii
voices of authority. The place where I could see myself, beyond imposed could participate fully in the production of images. Hence it is essential
images, was in the realm of the snapshot. I am most real to myself in rhar any theoretical discussion of the relationship of black life to the
snapshots-there I see an image I can-love. visual, to art making, make photography central. Access and mass appeal
My favorite childhood snapshot, then and now, showed me in costume, have historically made photography a powerful location for the construc-
masquerading. Long after it had disappeared, I continued to long for it, tion of an oppositional black aesthetic. Before racial integration there was
and to grieve. I loved this snapshot of myself because it was the only a constant struggle on the part of black folks co create a counterhege-
image available to me that gave me a sense of presence, of girlhood monic world of images that would stand as visual resistance, challenging
beauty and capacity for pleasure. It was an image of myself I could gen- racist images. All colonized and subjugated people who, by way of resis-
uinely like. At that stage of my life I was crazy about Westerns, about tance, create an oppositional subculture within the framework of domi-
cowboys and Indians. The camera captured me in my cowgirl outfit, nation recognize that the field of representation (how we see ourselves,
white ruffled blouse, vest, fringed skirt, my one gun and my boors. In this how others see us) is a site of ongoing struggle.
image I became all that I wanted to be in my imagination. The history of black liberation movements in the United States could
For a moment, suspended in this image: I am a cowgirl. There is a look be characterized as a struggle over images as much as it has also been a
of heavenly joy on my face. I grew up needing this image, cherishing it- struggle for rights, for equal access. To many reformist black civil rights
my one reminder that there was a precious little girl inside me able to activists, who believed that desegregation would offer the humanizing
know and express joy. I took this photograph with me on a visit to the context ~hat would challenge and change white supremacy, the issue of
house of my father's cousin Schuyler. representation-control over images-was never as important as equal
His was a home where arr and the image mattered. No wonder, then, access. As time has progressed and the face of white supremacy has not
that I wanted to share my "best" image. Making my first real journey changed, reformist and radical blacks would likely agree that the field of
 58 ART ON MY MIND JN OUR GI.ORY: PHOTOGRAPHY AND BLACK LiFE ':i9

representation remains a crucial realm of struggle, as important as the means-private or public-by which an oppositional standpoint could
question of equal access, if not more important. Roger Wilkins empha- be asserted, a mode of seeing different from that of the dominant culture.
sizes this point in his recent essay "White Out." Everyday black folks began to see themselves as not having a major role to
play in the production of images.
In those innocent days, before desegregation had really been tried,
To reverse this trend we must begin to talk about the significance of
before the New Frontier and the Great Society, many of us blacks
had lovely, naive hopes for integration ... In our naivete, we black image production in daily life prior to racial integration. When we
believed that the power to segregate was the greatest power that concentrate on photography, then, we make it possible to see the walls of
had been wielded against us. It turned out rhat our expectations photographs in black homes as a critical intervention, a disruption of
were wrong. The greatest power turned out to be what it had always white control over black images.
been:_the power to define reality where blacks are concerned and to
Most Southern black folks grew up in a context where snapshots and the
manage perceptions and therefore arrange .politics and culture to
reinforce those definitions. more stylized photographs taken by professional photographers were the
easiest images to produce. Displaying these images in everyday life was as
Though our politics differ, Wilkins's observations echo my insistence, in central as making them. The walls of images in Southern black homes were
the opening essay of Black Looks:Raceand Representation,that black people have sites of resistance. They constituted private, black-owned and -operated
made few, if any, revolutionary interventions in the arena of representation. gallery space where images could be displayed, shown to friends and
In part, racial desegregation-equal access-offered a vision of racial strangers. These walls were a space where, in the midst of segregation, the
progress that, however limited, led many black people to be less vigilant hardship of apartheid, dehumanization could be countered. Images could

II
about the question of representation. Concurrently, contemporary com- be critically considered, subjects positioned according to individual desire.
modification of blackness creates a market context wherein conventional, Growing up inside these walls, many of us did not, at the time, regard
even stereotypical, modes of representing blackness may receive the them as important at valuable. Increasingly, as black folks live in a world so
greatest reward. This leads to a cultural context in which images that technologically advanced that iris possible fat images to be produced and
would subvert the status quo are harder to produce. There is no "per- reproduced instantly, it is even harder for some of us to emotionally contex-
ceived market" for them. Nor should it surprise us that the erosion of
oppositional black subcultures (many of which have been destroyed in l tualize the significance of the camera in black life during the years of racial
apartheid. The sites of conrestation were not out there,in the world of whit~
the desegregation process) has deprived us of those sites of radical resis-
r ranee where we have had primary control over representation. Signifi-
I power, they were within segregated black life. Since no "white" galleries dis-

I
played images of black people created by black folks, spaces had to be made
(\ candy, nationalist black freedom movements were often concerned only within diverse black communities. Across class boundaries black folks
)with questions of "good" and "bad" imagery and did not promote a more struggled with the issue of representation. This issue was linked with the
( expansive cultural understanding of the politics of representation. Instead issue of documentation; hence the importance of photography. The camera
( they promoted notions of essence and identity that ultimately restricted was the central instrument by which blacks could disprove representations
l_and confined black image production. of us created by white folks. The degrading images of blackness that
• No wonder, then, that racial integration has created a crisis in black· emerged from racist white imagination and that were circulated widely in
life, signaled by the utter loss of critical vigilance in the arena of image the dominant culture (on salt shakers, cookie jars, pancake boxes) could be
making-by our being stuck in endless debate over good and bad countered by "true-to-life" images. When the psychohistory of a people is
imagery. The aftermath of this crisis has been devastating in that it has marked by ongoing loss, when entire histories are denied, hidden, erased,
led to a relinquishment of collective black intetest in the production of documentation can become an obsession. The camera must have seemed a
images. Photography began to have less significance in black life as a magical instrument to many of the displaced and marginalized groups
 60 ART ON MY MIND IN OUR GLORY: PHOTOGRAPHY AND BLACK LIFE fil

trying to carve out new destinies for themselves in the Americas. More than household could experience this as an enjoyahleactivity, before any of the
any other image-making tool, the camera offered African-Americans , dis- rest of us could be behind the camera. Until then, picture taking was
empowered in white culture, a way to empower ourselves through represen- serious business. I hared it. I hated posing. I hated cameras. I hated the
tation. For black folks, the camera provided a means to document a reality images that cameras produced. When I stopped living at home, I refused
that could, if necessary, be packed, stored, moved from place ro place. It was to be captured by anyone's camera. I did not wish to document my life,
documentation that could be shared, passed around. And, ultimately, these the changes, the presence of different places, people, and so on. I wanted
images, the world they recorded, could be hidden, to be discovered at to leave no trace. I wanted there to be no walls in my life that would, like
another time. Had the camera been there when slavery ended, it could have gigantic maps, chart my journey. I wanted to stand outside history.
provided images that would have helped folks searching for lost kin and
loved ones. It would have been a powerful tool of cultural recovery. Half a
I That was twenty years ago. Now that I am passionately involved with
thinking critically about black people and representation, I can confess
century lacer, the generations of black folks emerging from a history ofloss that those walls of photographs empowered me, and that I feel their
became passionately obsessed with the camera. Elderly black people devel- absence in my life. Right now I long for those walls, those curatorial
oped a cultural passion for the camera, for the images it produced, because it spaces in the home that express our will to make and display images.
offered a way to contain memories, to overcome loss, to keep history. Sarah Oldham, my mother's mother, was a keeper of walls. Through-
;z- Though rarely articulated as such, the camera became in black life a out my childhood, visits to her house were like trips to a gallery or
political instrument, a way to resist misrepresentation as well as a means museum-experiences we did not have because of racial segregation. We
by which alternative images could be produced. Photography was more would stand before the walls of images and learn the importance of the
fascinating to masses of black folks than other forms of image making
because it offered the possibility of immediate intervention, useful in the
I arrangement, why a certain photograph was placed here and not there.
The walls were fundamentally different from photo albums. Rather than
production of counterhegemonic representations even as it was also an I shutting images away, where they could be seen only upon request, the
instrument of pleasure. The camera allowed black folks to combine image
making, resistance struggle, and pleasure. Taking pictures was fun! i walls were a public announcement of the primacy of the image, the joy of
image making. To enter black homes in my childhood was to enter a;,
Growing up in the 1950s, I was somewhat awed and at times fright-
ened by our extended family's emphasis on picture taking. From the
images of the dead as they lay serene, beautiful, and still in open caskets
ll World that valued the visual, that asserted our collective will to partici-
pate in a noninstitutionalized curatorial process.
For black folks constructing our identities within the culture of
to the endless portraits of newborns, every wall and corner of my grand- apartheid, these walls were essential co the process of decolonization. In
parents' (and most everybody else's) home was lined with photographs. opposition to colonizing socialization, internalized racism, these walls

!
When I was young I never linked this obsession with self-representation announced our visual complexity. We saw ourselves represented in these
to our history as a domestically colonized and subjugated people. images not as caricatures, cartoonlike figures; we were there in full diver-
My perspective on picture taking was also informed by the way the ·I sity of body, being, and expression, multidimensional. Reflecting the way
process was tied to patriarchy in our household. Our father was definitely black folks looked at themselves in those private spaces, where those ways
the "piccure-takin' man." For a long time cameras remained mysterious of looking were not being overseen by a white colonizing eye, a white-
and off limits to the rest of us. As the only one in the family who had supremacist gaze, these images created ruptures in our experience of the
access to the equipment, who could learn how to make the process work, visual. They challenged both white perceptions of blackness and that realm
my father exerted control over our images. In charge of capturing our of black-produced image making that reflected internalized racism. Many
family history with the camera, he called and took the shots. We were of these images demanded that we look at ourselves with new eyes, that we
constantly being lined up for picture taking, and it was years before our create oppositional standards of evaluation. As we looked at black skin in
 62 ART ON MY MIND
IN OUR GLORY: PHOTOGRAPHY AND I3LACK l.ll'E 63

snapshots, the techniques for lightening skin that professional photogra- one who will never work for anything, someone who picks up things
phers often used when shooting black images were suddenly exposed as a lying on other people's dressers and is not embarrassed when found
colonizing aesthetic. Photographs taken in everyday life, snapshots in par- out. Jc is the face of a sneak who glides over to your sink to rinse the
ticular, rebelled against all those photographic practices that reinscribed fork you have laid by your place. An inward face~whatever it sees
is its own self. You are there, it says, because I am looking at you.
colonial ways of looking and capturing the images of the black "ocher."
Shot spontaneously, without any notion of remaking black bodies in the I quote this passage at length because it attests. ~o a kind of connection
image of whiteness, snapshots posed a challenge to black viewers. Unlike to photographic images that has not been acknowledged in critical discus-
photographs constructed so that black images would appear as the embod- sions of black folks' relationship to the visual. When I first read these sen-
iment of colonizing fantasies, snapshots gave us a way to see ourselves, a tences, I was reminded of the passionate way we related to photographs
sense of how we looked when we were not "wearing the mask," when we when I was a child. Fictively dramatizing the extent to which a photo-
were not attempting to perfect the image for a white-supremacist gaze. graph can have a "living presence," Morrison describes the way that many
Although most black folks did not articulate their desire to look at black folks rooted in Southern tradition once used, and still use, pictures.
images of themselves that did not resemble or please white folks' ideas They were and remain a mediation between the living and the dead.
about us, or chat did not frame us within an image of racial hierarchies, To create a palimpsest of black folks' relation to the visual in segre-
that desire was expressed through our passionate engagement with infor- gated black life, we need to follow each trace, nor fall into the trap of
mal photographic practices. Creating pictorial genealogies was the thinking that if something was not openly discussed, ot only talked about
means by which one could ensure against the losses of the past. Such and not recorded, it lacks significance and meaning. Those pictorial
genealogies were a way to sustain ties. As children, we learned who our genealogies that Sarah Oldham, my mother's mother, constructed on her
ancestors were by listening to endless narratives as we stood in front of walls were essential to our sense of self and identity as a family. They pro-
these pictures.
vided a necessary narrative, a way for us to enter history without words.
In many black homes, photographs-especially snapshots-were When words entered, they did so in order to make the images live. Many
also central to the creation of "altars." These commemorative places paid older black folks who cherished pictures were not literate. The images were
homage to absent loved ones. Snapshots or professional portraits were c!"ucialdocumentation, there to sustain and affirm memory. This was tr~e·
placed in specific settings so that a relationship with the dead could be for my grandmother, who did not read or write. I focus especially on her
continued. Poignantly describing this use of the image in her noveljazz, walls because I know that, as an artist (she was an excellent quiltmaker),
Toni Morrison writes:
she positioned the photos with the same care that she laid our her quilts.
••• a dead girl's face has become a necessary thing for their nights. The walls of pictures were indeed maps guiding us through diverse
They each take turns to throw off the bedcovers, rise up from the journeys. Seeking to recover strands of oppositional worldviews that were
sagging mattress and tiptoe over cold linoleum into the parlor to a part of black folks' historical relationship to the visual, to the process of
gaze at what seems like the only living presence in the house: the image making, many black folks are once again looking to photography
photo~raph of a bold, unsmiling girl staring from the mantelpiece. to make the connection. The contemporary African-American artist
If the tiptoer is Joe Trace, driven by loneliness from his wife's side,
Emma Amos maps our journeys when she mixes photographs with paint-
then the face stares at him without hope. or regret and it is the
absence of accusation that wakes him from his sleep hungry for her ing, making connections between past and present. Amos uses snapshots
company. No finger points. Her lips don't turn down in judgment. inherited from an uncle who once took pictures for a living. In one piece,
Her face is calm, generous and sweet. But if the tiproer is Violet, the Amos paints a map of the United States and identifies diasporic African
photograph is not that at all. The girl's face looks greedy, haughty presences, as well as particular Native American communities with black
and very lazy. The cream-at-the-top-of-the-milkpail face of some-
kin, marking each spot with a family image.
64 ART ON MY MIND

Drawing from the past, from those walls of images I grew up with, I
gather snapshots and lay them out to see what narratives the images tell,
what they say without words. I search these images to see if there are
imprints waiting to be seen, recognized, and read. Together, a black male
friend and I lay out the snapshots of his boyhood ro see when he began to
lose a certain openness, to discern at what age he began to shut down, to
close himself away. Through these images, my friend hopes to find a way
back to the self he once was. We are awed by what our snapshots reveal,
what they enable us to remember.
The word remember(re-member)evokes the coming together of severed
parts, fragments becoming a whole. Photography has been, and is, cen-
tral to that aspect of decolonization that calls us back to the past and
offers a way to reclaim and renew life-affirming bonds. Using images, we
connect ourselves to a recuperative, redemptive memory that enables us
to construct radical identities, images of ourselves that transcend the
limits of the colonizing eye.