‘A Show at the National Gallery Highlights the Role of Photography in the Black Arts Movement’ by Colony Little
2025
In a 1968 photograph by Doris Derby, a young girl longingly peers into the window of a toy store in Jackson, Mississippi. Within the image, Derby captures another photographer holding an 8mm camera, kneeling and holding the camera at the child’s eye level. While Derby’s photograph of a child dreaming of play is resonant for its tender simplicity, this era was marked by very different images of life in Mississippi, from the indelible photos of the open-casket funeral of Emmett Till in Chicago in 1955 to the iconic images of the 1963 lunch counter sit-ins in Jackson. Photojournalistic images spanning more than a decade covering protests, demonstrations, and demands for justice became trenchant reminders of the social and political tumult of the time.
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