By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Lawrence photographer Ann Dean gave a presentation Thursday night at the Hays Public Library titled "The Power of Imagery and the Civil Rights Experience. "
The presentation was part of a month-long "Sorting Out Race" speakers series.
"Really, since its inception, photography has been used for raising awareness of social issues, provoking emotions, provoking thoughts and reshaping our perceptions of how we see the world," Dean said.
"The really great photographers open your eyes to the world around you. Their images raise awareness. They make you feel emotion."
She said photography can help us understand our past and better our understanding of each other.
Photography was essential to documenting the Civil Rights Movement and spreading its images throughout the United States and the world, she said.
Dean shared multiple photos of Frederick Douglass, who she said equated photography with freedom.
Frederick Douglass said, "When you look at a photograph of me, you will never deny that I am a man worthy of freedom and worthy of citizenship. You will look me in the eye and see my humanity."
Dean said Blacks in mass media were vilified, demonized, twisted, ghoulish versions of themselves and turned into racist tropes like coons, pickaninnies, mammies, sambos and Uncle Toms.
The early 1900s "coon postcards" depicted Blacks as animalistic, simplistic, and happy to eat watermelon. Even Black children were depicted as prone to violent behavior.
Photography allowed Black Americans to be seen for who they really were: dignified, fully realized human beings.
Dean included a photo of her mother and father attending a college football game in 1952. Her parents were dressed to the nines. Her father wore a suit, and her mother wore a skirt and white gloves. The students in the audience giggled as Dean acknowledged this is not how students today dress to attend a football game.
"They look so proud and so beautiful," Dean said. "It's my favorite picture of my parents back in 1952."
Shortly after that picture was taken, her parents married and moved to St. Louis. When they tried to purchase a home, the neighbors drew up a petition to keep them from buying the house.
They purchased the home anyway. After many years of living side by side, members of families who had signed that petition became lifelong friends, Dean said.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Black and white photographers used their lenses to affect change.
"They used the power of these still images to expose these atrocities that were occurring," Dean said.
They were nonbiased and respected in their communities, she said. However, they put themselves in harm's way. She showed a picture of one photographer after a protest who was wearing a gas mask.
"They were trying to tell the truth. They were trying to get something seen that was not seen," Dean said.
Gordon Parks, a native Kansan, was a significant photographer during the Civil Rights Movement and the first Black photographer for Life magazine.
He was noted for taking portraits of average Black Americans and icons such as Malcolm X.
In his memoir, he described his camera as his choice of weapon against all things he disliked about living in America as a Black man.
In 1947, he photographed the doll tests. Scientists presented Black children with black and white dolls.
They were asked to choose which doll they preferred, which was good and which was bad. Most children chose the white doll.
When the children were asked to identify which doll was most like them, they became upset when they had to identify with the black doll. Some even ran out of the room in tears.
"The study did reveal there was psychological damage caused by segregation and discrimination," Dean said.
This study was used to argue the Brown v. Board of Education case, which led to the desegregation of schools and the ruling that separate was not equal.
Dean shared an image of Elizabeth Eckford, known as one of the Little Rock Nine, trying to enter her high school. The photo was later known as "The Scream" because of the young white woman, Hazel Bryan, behind Eckford in the photograph screaming at her.
Dean said the image followed both women throughout their lives. In 1963, Bryan had a change of heart and apologized to Eckford.
Charles Moore, a white photographer, said white police officers and mobs seemed to enjoy beating on these people.
"They had such hatred in their faces as they committed these atrocities and spewed out their anger and their venom," he said.
The photographers were targets, Dean said.
Moore reported being taunted, yelled at, cursed out, having things thrown at him, followed and threatened.
His images were credited with helping quicken the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Dean said.
Dean shared a photo of Peter, also known as Gordon, who had been enslaved and escaped in 1863. The image depicts Peter's badly scarred back from beatings.
She juxtaposed that image with that of a man wearing a jacket at the Selma voting rights march in 1965.
"This identified man is clearly fed up. He has his message of utter frustration written across his back. ... This was a bold message this man was displaying in a very dangerous environment where he could easily become a target for violence," Dean said.
Spider Martin had the largest collection of photographs from the Civil Rights Movement.
Martin Luther King Jr. once told Spider Martin, "We could have marched and protested forever, but if it weren't for guys like you, it would have been for nothing. The whole world saw your pictures and that is why the Voting Rights Act actually passed."
Dean shared an image from 2015 from the cover of Time magazine. It shows a young man running away from a large line of police during protests after the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
"The same things are going on almost 50 years later," Dean said. "And the same issues at the forefront—poverty, equal education, housing, voting rights, unemployment. We are now still at that tipping point."
Photographers today are trying to show the struggle for equality, Dean said.
They are trying to make sure the lives of folks like George Floyd, Breoann Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and so many others are not forgotten and their lives were not taken in vain, Dean said.
"Through photography, through imagery we can relive these incidents from so long ago. We can see whipped Peter from the 1800s and think where imagery started and where it's come today—the journey it has taken to give us a mirror of ourselves to make us feel these emotions," Dean said.
At the conclusion of the lecture, Dean took questions and heard comments. A man in the audience said he was born in Birmingham in the 1950s and grow up there during the Civil Rights Movement.
He said he was raised in a racist environment.
Dean asked what helped him get over it.
Through tears, he said he was walking down the sidewalk when he was 12, and a 70-year-old Black man stepped into the street to let him pass.
Below is a list of the rest of the lectures in the series and information on an accompanying exhibit at the Hays Public Library. All the events are free and open to the public.
