In a charming volume titled Picturing Us, author, curator and photographic historian Deborah Willis writes that the invention of photography marked a watershed for African-Americans because it enabled them for the first time to exercise control over how they were represented in images.
The camera allowed blacks to create images of themselves for themselves, and thus define an identity independent of the white world and its racist stereotypes. The extensive pictorial record compiled by African-American photographers from the 19th century onward reflected a view of black life that encompassed the full humanity of its subjects and the great variety of civic and domestic activities in which they participated.
Part of that huge visual legacy now can be seen in Baltimore at Heirlooms, a delightful little antique and curio shop at the corner of York Road and Bellona Avenue. Opened last fall by proprietor Ruth Fuqua, the shop serves as a showcase for her collection of some 2,000 vintage photographs by 19th- and 20th-century African-American photographers, one of the largest of its type in the region.
Fuqua, an African-American schoolteacher and history buff, began collecting vintage photographs of African-Americans in the 1970s, when the historical significance of these works was still largely unrecognized. Most of the pictures in her collection were taken by anonymous black studio photographers who documented the life of their communities in formal portraits and pictures commemorating such milestones as births, weddings, anniversaries and graduations.
The earliest photographs in the collection date from the 1870s and 1880s. There is a lovely picture of a wedding couple from around this time, for example, that shows the bride and groom as they undoubtedly wished to be remembered by posterity.
The man is wearing a well-tailored suit and highly polished shoes; beside him, his wife wears a white silk wedding gown. Their expressions reflect both the happiness of the moment and a consciousness of the difficulties and obstacles that inevitably lie ahead; contrasting with the wife's sunny disposition, the man's forehead seems contracted almost into a frown as he stares into the camera.
We do not know the identities of this couple, nor where or exactly when the picture was taken, nor by whom. The formal setting, the conventional backdrop and the suggestion of some sort of studio lighting all suggest the picture is the work of a professional photographer, either one who maintained a permanent studio or one of the countless itinerant artisans who traveled from town to town offering their services for hire.
In her groundbreaking survey, Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present, published in 2000, Willis notes that black photographers were among the earliest pioneers of the medium in the United States and that they used photography from the beginning to help establish a collective identity countering the pervasive negative stereotypes used to justify racial discrimination.
Among the earliest black photographers were Augustus Washington (1820-1875), a native of New Jersey whose daguerreotype portraits were highly sought after. Another was James P. Ball (1825-1905), a free black abolitionist who photographed the construction of the Montana state capitol building and made thousands of portraits of blacks and whites.
In the 20th century, the rise of black newspapers provided new employment opportunities for African-American photographers. Fuqua's collection, for example, contains a photograph of the black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, whose contributions during World War II prompted the integration of the American armed forces in 1948 and paved the way for the civil rights movement that followed.
The photograph shows the crew members of a Martin B-26 medium bomber in front of their aircraft at a stateside training field. The picture was almost certainly taken by a photographer for one of the nation's black newspapers, which throughout the war urged the government to step up programs for training black fliers. The young men in the picture, most barely out of their teens, are depicted as supremely competent, confident and courageous, exemplars of the nation's highest ideals despite the color of their skin.
There are about 200 pictures from Fuqua's collection currently on display, and the exhibit changes every few months. A great part of the pleasure of visiting the shop lies in the enthusiastic and knowledgeable patter of its amiable proprietor, whose passion for her subject seems contagious. Most of the photographs are not for sale, however: Fuqua still hopes to find a permanent home for the entire collection that has the resources to conserve large numbers of works on paper.
Until then, a visit to Heirlooms' photographic display is a fascinating excursion into a still little-known past that is nevertheless rich in significance for the present. It is a story of a cruelly oppressed people's refusal to be defined by the prejudices of others, of their insistence upon their own dignity and value as unique human beings, and of their hope for vindication if not in the present, then among future generations.
Heirlooms is at 5702 Bellona Ave. Hours are Monday through Friday 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday noon to 6 p.m., and by appointment. Call 410-532-8028.