{"id":33914,"date":"2025-07-03T00:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T00:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/33914\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T00:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T00:17:09","slug":"carver-museum-explores-african-american-history-through-powerful-photo-exhibit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/33914\/","title":{"rendered":"Carver Museum explores African American history through powerful photo exhibit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

A photograph from the \u2018Black Folk Photography\u2019 exhibit depicts Black and white children walking together across a street in New York City during the 1930s. (Photo by Travis Bradley<\/a>\/Cronkite News)<\/p>\n

PHOENIX \u2014 The George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center wasn\u2019t always a national landmark. Nearly 100 years ago, it was the Phoenix Union Colored High School \u2013 a symbolic representation of the reprehensible race relations in the Valley during the 1920s.<\/p>\n

Today, it is affectionately known as \u201cThe Carver.\u201d Over time, and as a direct result of the dedicated work of historians and social activists throughout the century, it has become a space dedicated to the study of the history and culture of African Americans in Arizona and the American Southwest.<\/p>\n

One of the more recent extensions of the museum\u2019s efforts to portray the lives, arts and cultures of African Americans was implemented this past February.<\/p>\n

Called the \u201cBlack Folk Photography\u201d exhibit, it features the work of the folk photographer, Joe Schwartz, and several historically significant black photographers, including Gordon Parks and Deana Lawson.<\/p>\n

Schwartz\u2019s life centered around activism, street politics and photographing the \u201chave-nots\u201d and the downtrodden. Growing up in the slums of Brooklyn, New York, Schwartz, the son of immigrants from Poland and Romania, saw firsthand how people from all races and cultures could cohabitate, regardless of the color of their skin or where they went to church.<\/p>\n

The idea for the exhibit was conceived during a conversation between Dr. Matthew Whitaker, the executive director at the Carver, and his friend and mentor, Dr. Carl Schwartz, who is a part-time therapist at Scottsdale Providence Recovery Center, and Joe\u2019s son.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In addition to the life work of Joe Schwartz, the exhibit highlights the professional work of historically significant Black photographers like Gordon Parks and Deana Lawson. (Photo by Travis Bradley<\/a>\/Cronkite News)<\/p>\n

\u201c(Carl) mentioned that his father was a well-known Harlem Renaissance photographic artist who had run afoul of some more conservative leaders because of his advocacy in Harlem,\u201d Whitaker said. \u201cHe wanted to demonstrate the humanity of the folks who lived in Harlem and the diversity of it. \u2026 He wanted to show them in their own environment, navigating and defining and owning that environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to what Whitaker called contemporary \u201cstruggles navigating and negotiating interracial relationships,\u201d he knew that he wanted to feature this work in the Carver.<\/p>\n

While these types of social issues certainly are not novel, the peculiar nature of racial conflict is that it tends to transform with the times. Ironically, in racially mixed, low-income communities where resources are more scarce than they are in their affluent counterparts, racial differences become secondary to the unanimous struggle for financial security.<\/p>\n

Joe Schwartz, who died in 2013 at 99, exemplified this phenomenon in his work, capturing moments of unity and companionship between white and Black residents in financially distressed New York neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember being in the projects when I was young, and you just got used to everybody being poor. In fact, I don\u2019t think anybody thought they were poor at that time,\u201d Carl said. <\/p>\n

The museum exhibit isn\u2019t targeted solely to African American audiences, Whitaker said. It is meant to both display critical aspects of African American history through photographic art as well as speak to other identities and various modes of \u201cothering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to show the work of this white photographic artist who was deeply committed to Black lives and humanity, but we also wanted to exhibit the work of Black folk artists as well, and we think the exhibit really captures that,\u201d Whitaker said.<\/p>\n

The topics and conversations the Carver staff hope to address through the exhibit aren\u2019t exclusive to the metro Phoenix area \u2013 they are prominent throughout much of the United States.<\/p>\n

Roosevelt and Eunice Randall, who were visiting the Valley from Clinton, Louisiana, toured the museum during their vacation, and they had a particular affinity for the Black Folk Photography exhibit.<\/p>\n

The Randalls have been married for 40 years, and in their experience living in the East Feliciana Parish, racial divides are still a prominent feature in many parts of the American South.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A documentary titled \u2018Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People (2014)\u2019 plays in the exhibit while visitors look on. (Photo by Travis Bradley<\/a>\/Cronkite News)<\/p>\n

Eunice was captivated by the history that the photography depicted, seeing part of her own background reflected in Joe Schwartz\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t want to go back and look at the beginning, how things started, things you had to walk through and go through,\u201d Eunice said. \u201cI think it\u2019s important because we don\u2019t often use Black history anymore in the school systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pointed out the various techniques the photographers used to capture the notability of African American culture in America.<\/p>\n

Her husband, Roosevelt, was taken aback by how prominent the Black photographers commemorated in the museum were throughout the inflection points in our country\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just one or two photographers \u2013 there were a lot. They really did a lot more than what we\u2019ve heard about,\u201d Roosevelt said.<\/p>\n

Eunice noted that the exhibit inspired her to think deeper on the topic, posing questions like \u201cWhy did these photographers do what they did, what encouraged them? What was impressed on them to put everything that they had in themselves out there to everybody else?\u201d<\/p>\n

All are questions that the Black Folk Photography exhibit intended to provoke in its visitors.<\/p>\n

Whitaker was born and raised on the southwest side of Phoenix, and he\u2019s been a long-time resident of Arizona. As someone who has unmediated experiences with the ebbing and flowing of race relations in the Valley, he sees an additional purpose that the exhibit can bring to the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, this exhibit closes the gap by getting to the core of who we are,\u201d Whitaker said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust human beings trying to eek out a living and to get some joy from the freedom that we have.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A photograph from the \u2018Black Folk Photography\u2019 exhibit depicts Black and white children walking together across a street…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[28193,5229,28194,5643,1587,28195,28196,28197,28198,28199,28200,28201,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-33914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-african-american-history","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-american-southwest","11":"tag-arizona","12":"tag-az","13":"tag-black-folk-photography","14":"tag-black-history","15":"tag-carver-museum","16":"tag-deana-lawson","17":"tag-george-washington-carver-museum-and-cultural-center","18":"tag-gordon-parks","19":"tag-joe-schwartz","20":"tag-phoenix","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114786431330142041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}