W.E.B. DuBois Photographs from 1900 Paris Exposition on Display
The exhibit begins Friday, Jan. 9, and runs through Feb. 27
DURHAM, N.C. -- In 1900, W.E.B. DuBois selected photographs of African-Americans from Georgia for display at the Paris Exposition Universelle -- images intended to reflect the spiritual, social and economic diversity of the "New Negro."
On Friday, Jan. 9, an exhibit of a selection of those photographs opens at Duke University's John Hope Franklin Center, 2204 Erwin Road. The opening begins at 7 p.m.; a lecture will be given at 5:30 p.m. by New York University professor Deborah Willis, curator of the show.
Willis is the author, with DuBois biographer and expert Daniel Levering Lewis, of "A Small Nation of People: W.E.B. DuBois and African American Portraits of Progress" (Amistad Press, 2003).
The lecture and exhibit are part of the campus-wide series "Dissent: Past & Present," which commemorates the 100th anniversary of "The Bassett Affair", when Trinity College trustees faced down intense pressure to fire history professor John Spencer Bassett for his unpopular views on race. It also is the 100th anniversary of the publication of "The Souls of Black Folk," the influential book of essays by DuBois, a sociologist, writer and civil rights leader.
The photographs selected by DuBois originally were placed within the display of the American Negro Exhibit in Paris, which showed photographs of black educational institutions and black-owned businesses and homes in North Carolina, Florida and Washington.
Rather than showing the travails of African Americans, DuBois intended to represent their progress, in accord with the Paris Exposition's theme. Through 363 photographs by an undetermined number of photographers, some well-known and some anonymous, he presented the "typical" educated black child, businesswoman and businessman.
The images reflected a sense of racial pride and the beginnings of the notion of a "New Negro" aesthetic. DuBois believed that defining beauty within black culture through photography was a significant step in the fight against racist representations.
The selected 45 photographs in the Duke exhibit depict the desire to achieve middle-class status, which contradicted displays found in previous world fairs and expositions.
The event is sponsored by the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute and the African and African American Studies Program. The exhibit runs through Feb. 27.
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The John Hope Franklin Center Gallery is open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.