So yesterday was a terrific night. Well over 90 people attended the opening reception for our Black/Inside: A History of Captivity & Confinement exhibition. It really was a great turnout. If you are in the Chicago area this Saturday, I will be at the exhibition giving tours from 1 to 4 p.m. There will be a tour each hour. You are invited to visit.

For those who can’t make it to Chicago over the next month, below are some great photos taken by my friend Sarah Jane Rhee (who is an amazing photographer) at the opening. In addition, my friend Jake will have some video which I will post at the Black/Inside website soon.

Photo by Sarah Jane Rhee

Photo by Sarah Jane Rhee

Photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (10/22/12)

Photo by Sarah Jane Rhee

Photo by Sarah Jane Rhee

Photo by Sarah Jane Rhee

Photo by Sarah Jane Rhee

Finally, tonight is the reception to celebrate the opening of the Black/Inside: A History of Captivity & Confinement exhibition. I can hardly believe it. We have worked really hard to make this a reality. My thanks to my co-collaborators Teresa and Billy. Also, my deepest appreciation to everyone who helped to make this exhibition happen. I am exhausted and will be taking a break from blogging (for the most part) this week.

Here is one of the exhibition panels that you can expect to see.

Black/Inside Exhibition Panel (10/20/12)

Below is a list of events associated with the exhibition. If you are in Chicago, please make sure to join us.

for bobbie and terry
by Norma Stafford

we sit together, you and i,
bound by our mutual suffering
at the hands of our keepers
we make jokes that force
our minds to leave here
and follow the hard path of laughter
we laugh at our condition
both the physical and the mental.
tears are pushed forward
by the onslaught of anger
we strike out at each other
hard furious blows that bruise
and sometimes draw blood
then we fall sobbing into
the arms of each other
the tender hands of each
ministering to the wounds of the other
such gentleness, such hate, such love
we feel one for the other
locked together, bound together
in this small hated space.

I first wrote about Laura Scott on this blog back in January. I had no idea where her story would take me at the time. Well today, 9 months later, I have given birth to a publication that tells a necessarily incomplete story of her life. It is necessarily incomplete because after so many years it is difficult to reconstruct the life story of a basically unknown black woman prisoner of the early 20th century.

My journey to learn more about Laura which I have cataloged through this blog has led me to her prison records, census records, court records, old newspapers, and more. I had a lot of help along the way from archivists, librarians, and others who helped lead me down a path towards discovering more about this incredible 19th century black woman.

Laura’s story will figure prominently in the Black/Inside: A History of Captivity & Confinement exhibition that I am co-curating and co-organizing with my friends Billy Dee and Teresa Silva.

You can download the new publication here. If you are in Chicago anytime between October 23 and November 21, I invite you to stop by Black/Inside to see Laura’s part of the exhibition and also to pick up a hard copy of the new publication. For those who cannot stop by, I hope that you will download the publication to learn more about this most interesting woman.

Finally, I want to thank some of the readers of this blog for your interest in Laura and for your encouraging words to me. When I faced some dead-ends and became frustrated, I would remember that a few of you had reached out to tell me how interesting Laura was. This would keep me motivated to move ahead. So once again, I want to thank you for reading about Laura and caring about her life.

designed by Billy Dee (Laura Scott)

It’s crunch time. Only 5 days until we open the Black/Inside: A History of Captivity & Confinement exhibition. While the exhibition focuses primarily on the concepts of captivity and confinement of Black people in the U.S., it also interrogates the meaning of “freedom.”

This brings me to an important artifact that I acquired and hope to exhibit as part of Black/Inside. It’s still iffy that we will be able to include it but I hope so.

The Constitution of the U.S. included a fugitive slave clause which insured that owners could recover runaway slaves across state lines. Any black person in the Colonies was vulnerable to being captured and sold into slavery. In order to protect themselves, free blacks had to prove that they were in fact “free.” Only a letter or document from their former slave masters or a white employer counted as “proof.” Yet even having such a document in hand was no guarantee that one couldn’t be re-enslaved. These “certificates of freedom” or “freedom papers” were treasured documents for some blacks. These documents were the tangible proof that they were no longer “captives” (to some degree).

Below is an example of a “certificate of freedom” dated 1796 that emancipates slaves named Caesar (age 20), his wife Sarah (age 25), and their children (Ann and Adam). I recently bid successfully on this item at auction and it is one of my prized possessions. I like to think of it as the original “papers please” example in American history.

1796 Virginia Emancipation (Freedom) Papers for Slaves Caesar, Sarah, and their children (Ann & Adam)

Stop by the exhibition during its month-long run (October 23-November 21) to see if this certificate of freedom will in fact be on display…

We are just one week away from the opening of the Black/Inside: A History of Captivity & Confinement exhibition. We are working like fiends to be ready. Below is a photograph of some art pieces that my friend and exhibition designer Billy Dee has created for display. They are 3 feet tall and basically awesome. Throughout the rest of this week leading up to the opening of the Black/Inside exhibition, I will be posting images. It’s crunch time and I don’t have time to write. I should be back to a regular writing schedule in a couple of weeks… I hope that you enjoy the images.

Image by Billy Dee

A couple of weeks ago, I co-organized an event about youth incarceration at the Gage Gallery at Roosevelt University. This was part of a discussion series accompanying the Juvenile-In-Justice photo exhibition.

The program featured a panel comprised of formerly incarcerated young men and was ably moderated by my friend Amanda Klonsky. I can’t stress how important it is for spaces to exist where youth can narrate their own experiences of incarceration. Their stories were poignant, moving, and searing.

If you were not lucky enough to be present to hear the stories first hand, my friend Sarah Lu kindly taped the panel and then uploaded the audio to Soundcloud. You can listen here. Please share this with others too.

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Prisons of Our World
by Allison Blake
(1995, Bedford Hills Correctional Facility)

Mrs. Hennessy is getting a manicure
No matter her husband loves her no more
Been vain and spoiled so long
Can’t leave these comforts now
Love is the only sacrifice it seems
Now she finds it in her dreams.

Sarah was to be a great artist
Her talents were noticed years ago
The street life smothered her dream
Now she lives in the could-have-been
Wonders each night if it should-have-been
Too afraid to think of the would-have-been.

Harry reaches for the bottle
Can’t get through the night without it
Colorful pictures dangle before him
Floating in unison with the sounds in his head
Can’t turn the music off now
It starts and stops without him.

Little Mary is hiding in the cellar
Doesn’t want her daddy to find her
Still hurting from last night’s beating
Can’t figure yet why it happened
Plans to run away as soon as she’s grown
Like Big Sister who works for Big Eddie.

We stand alone in the prison of our space.

Over the past couple of years of writing on this blog, I have learned that others are interested in some of the same things that I am. It makes me feel like I am not such an oddball after all. 🙂

A gentleman contacted me last month to ask about my photo collection. Specifically he was interested in how and where I go about acquiring photographs. I responded directly to him but thought that other photography enthusiasts might also be interested in some of this information in case you want to start or add to your own collection.

I have been collecting photographs for quite a few years. I have bought them at auctions, antique stores, through ebay, etc… However in just the past couple of years, a new treasure trove has become available to collectors and to the general public. Because many newspapers are suffering economically, they have begun to sell original vintage wire photographs from their archives. Many of these photographs have never been seen before and others have been published in papers across the country. In some instances, the archive photos are accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

A couple of tips for the novice collector who wants to purchase wire photos. You should be mindful that wire photos were sometimes printed on thin and glossy paper so that they could be transmitted through telegram or later faxes. In some cases, the newspaper archives sell photographs that are actually printed on regular photo paper (like you are used to seeing). This accounts for the difference in price that you will see when you order photographs through their websites. My rule of thumb is that the lower the price, the more likely that you are purchasing a wire photo printed on thin and glossy paper. The higher the price, the more likely that this is a print on regular photo paper. Make sure to check first.

The other thing to be on the lookout for are the markings that appear on some of the photographs – these sometimes include lines or writing. The writing usually cannot be removed but the lines from grease pencils most often can.

Below is an example of a photograph depicting the aftermath of the Attica Prison rebellion that is in my collection. It comes from the Baltimore Sun archives so you can see the watermark across the image. The actual photograph does not have the watermark on it. You can find other original vintage archive photos from the Baltimore Sun as well as from the Chicago Tribune at this website. Be careful not to start looking through their offerings if you are in a hurry because you will surely be late for your scheduled engagement. It can become an all-consuming experience (trust me).

From the archives of the Baltimore Sun

Here is another great print from my collection of wire photos. This one depicts Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy in jail on 6/11/64 and is a photo from the UPI.

UPI Wire Photo