The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh is currently hosting a groundbreaking exhibition titled "Black Photojournalism," which explores a pivotal era in American media history when images were both more challenging to create and less accessible to the public. The comprehensive show spans from World War II through approximately 1984, covering the period from the Double V campaign to Jesse Jackson's first presidential run, including the height of the civil rights movement.
During this era, Black life in America remained significantly underrepresented and poorly served by white-owned media outlets, largely due to the limited number of Black journalists employed by these organizations. This troubling disparity continues to affect media representation today. The exhibition highlights how Black-owned publications and photographers filled this crucial gap in documenting African American experiences and communities.
Pittsburgh's own Charles "Teenie" Harris serves as a prominent figure in the exhibition, representing his prolific career at the Pittsburgh Courier during his lengthy heyday. Harris and his camera were constantly documenting the city's civic gatherings, jazz performances, sandlot baseball games, and celebrity appearances. While Harris was uniquely productive and accomplished in Pittsburgh, he was part of a larger network of talented Black photojournalists across the nation.
The exhibition features approximately 200 images by nearly 60 photographers, drawing from multiple archives to present a comprehensive view of Black photojournalism. Notable photographers include Gordon Parks and Austin Hansen from New York, Bob Black from Chicago, Bob Douglas from Detroit, David Johnson from San Francisco, and John W. Mosley from Philadelphia. The chronologically later sections of the exhibit particularly highlight women photographers, including Coreen Simpson and Ming Smith, with most photographs presented in black-and-white format.
The show honors an impressive array of Black-owned publications that played crucial roles in documenting African American life. These include the Pittsburgh Courier, New York Amsterdam News, Los Angeles Sentinel, and Baltimore Afro-American newspapers. At its peak, the Pittsburgh Courier achieved national distribution with a circulation of 357,000 copies, while the Chicago Defender printed 200,000 copies per issue. The exhibition also represents pioneering nationally circulated Black monthly magazines, including Ebony, founded in 1945, and Jet, established in 1951.
Co-organizers Dan Leers and Charlene Foggie-Barnett have curated a diverse range of images that extends beyond traditional newspaper photography. While the collection includes expected journalistic content such as protest marches, sports coverage, musicians on bandstands, and politicians at podiums, it also incorporates artistic street photography and occasional nude photography. The exhibition even samples fashion photography and 1970s advertisements for Carlton cigarettes, demonstrating the broader scope of Black photographers' work.
The exhibition preserves countless moments of Black joy, resilience, and community that might have been lost to history without the strong Black-owned press. Visitors can witness Harris's photographs of elegantly dressed fans at Forbes Field baseball games and the groundbreaking Billy Eckstine Orchestra in performance, featuring Pittsburgh-born "Mr. B" on trombone with Sarah Vaughan observing. E.J. Doran's circa 1940 photograph captures a centenarian signing up for NAACP membership in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
John W. Mosley documented significant historical moments, including future Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah at Philadelphia's Pyramid Club in the 1940s and Albert Einstein's visit to Pennsylvania HBCU Lincoln College in 1946. John F. Glanton's striking "Pool Match" from the 1940s evokes an entire era through period hats alone, while Ernest C. Williams's 1953 photograph of a Memphis Park Commission sign reading "No Whites Allowed in Zoo Today" powerfully documents segregation.
The exhibition particularly highlights the work of Moneta Sleet Jr., a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. who documented the civil rights leader both delivering powerful speeches from lecterns and in intimate family moments playing with his children at home. Sleet made history as the first Black photographer to win a Pulitzer Prize for his moving image of Coretta Scott King at her husband's funeral, which is also included in the exhibition.
The show documents the gradual evolution toward a more subjective style of documentary photography. One of the exhibition's most compelling pieces is Roy DeCarava's haunting "Graduation" from 1949, depicting a young woman in a white gown and long white gloves walking through a dramatic slash of sunlight between tall building shadows, past piles of rubbish. DeCarava became the first Black person to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and Ming Smith's street photography follows a similar artistic vein.
The exhibition includes vintage copies of key publications displayed under glass, featuring 1950s issues of Jet magazine and other historically significant periodicals. Visitors can examine a yellowed 1963 copy of the Cincinnati Herald containing a publicity photograph and brief story about the local debut of a brand-new singing sensation known as Little Stevie Wonder.
"Black Photojournalism" offers additional educational resources, including a large newsprint handout that reprints nearly 40 of the exhibition's images and a touchable display featuring Liz Johnson Arthur's fabric-art books incorporating images from the show. The museum has also developed a companion podcast series to enhance the visitor experience. The exhibition continues through January 19, providing an essential opportunity to explore this crucial period in American photojournalism and media history.
