Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. It is the 25th anniversary of photographer Deborah Willis releasing Reflections in Black, a comprehensive history of American life through the lens of Black photographers like Gordon Parks and Carrie Mae Weems. It shows Black activism, identity, and achievement from 1840 to the start of the Millennium. When it was released, the New York Times called it an important act of cultural and historical excavation.

25 years later, she is releasing a new book called Reflections in Black: A Reframing. In it, she has more than 130 additional photos and an exhibit curated by Willis at NYU Tisch, where she is a professor. A new edition is out on November 18th, and her exhibit, Reflections in Black: A Reframing, is on NYU's campus through December 21st. Deborah Willis, it is great to have you in studio.

Deborah Willis: Great. I'm happy to be here. Thank you so much.

Alison Stewart: Where were you in your life when you began writing this book 25 years ago?

Deborah Willis: I was an undergraduate student at Philadelphia College of Art. I was in the sophomore questioning where are the Black photographers in our history books? I studied photography history and art history, and studio art, and no Black photographers were referenced. I grew up in a beauty shop in Philadelphia, so I knew Ebony Magazine and Life Magazine, and National Geographic, and I knew the work of Gordon Parks based on growing up in the beauty shop.

Alison Stewart: The book is an extensive look at the lives of Black people and Black photographers for nearly two centuries. What era was the hardest to source?

Deborah Willis: As an art student, I researched very differently. I actually went to the Black press in the 19th century, started looking through photo microfilm books that had Black press reproductions, and started looking for photographers from that period. Initially, it was difficult, but then, when I just sat down, when we could actually go into the archives and go sit on the floor in the stacks, I found a number of photographers that just did not know that they existed from the 1840s to the 1900s, and they were working. The difficult part was just finding the images. I found the names, and then I decided to write to historical societies as well as to libraries, contacting families to identify.

Alison Stewart: I notice Addison Scurlock is in the book quite a bit.

Deborah Willis: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Would you please explain to people who he is?

Deborah Willis: Yes. Addison Scurlock was one of the early photographers that I identified in my research early on. He was Howard University's photographer. He also had a studio on 9th Street in Northwest in DC. He had a studio with his sons, Robert and George. They were active. Both of them taught Mrs. Kennedy photography during the '50s and '60s. It's really important that the photography studio of Scurlock, people walked in, they understood why it was important to be photographed.

Specifically in Washington, DC, it was the hub, basically, when migration, Blacks from the South were moving. Education at Howard and other universities in the area, but also private schools, were developed. The intellectual aspect of DC was significant for many of the people in DC, but also the everyday people living in Northwest, Southeast, all throughout DC, were going to Addison Scurlock's photography studio.

Alison Stewart: What was the studio like that in New York?

Deborah Willis: James Van Der Zee. James Van Der Zee was also a crucial person because I visited the Harlem on My Mind exhibition in 1969 when I was a student. I was just amazed at going through the Met exhibition and seeing James Van Der Zee's work. There was, of course, controversy because it was social protest about the photography exhibition, because rarely we had an exhibition of photography at the Met, but it was important for me as a photography student to see images and to translate the images into beauty, to protest and see how communities develop during that time period.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with photographer Deborah Willis. She's releasing the 25th anniversary edition of her book Reflections in Black. It's publishing on November 18th. To accompany the book's release, she's also curated an exhibit at NYU. It's on display until December. The title of the book is Reflections in Black: A Reframing. What are you reframing in this edition? What are you adding to it?

Deborah Willis: The aspect of the idea of reframing. How do we tell the story again and again so that it's not forgotten the way that it was forgotten when I was a student? The aspect of reframing is looking at photographers from 2000 to 2023, when I submitted the publication. Many of the photographers were studying photography during this time, younger photographers. I decided I wanted to include the diaspora photographers from the UK, from the Caribbean, as well as West Africa, and some South Africa.

It was important for us to really think about the inclusiveness of photography within the African diaspora and how photographers were telling the stories and recreating memories for all of us to absorb and to be encouraged to rethink about, like Ernest Cole. There's a film recently that Raoul Peck has just produced, and it's just a fantastic way of thinking about the diaspora and how he visited New York in the '70s and made photographs that we did not know about. That's missing from my Book, but it's a way of including how important photography was to many people who are now revisiting and reframing photography today.

Alison Stewart: Raoul was here recently, I believe.

Deborah Willis: Oh.

Alison Stewart: He's such a great guy.

Deborah Willis: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Such an interesting guy.

Deborah Willis: He really is. Yes.

Alison Stewart: The cover of your book, it features the late Maud Sulter as Calliope, the Muse of Epic. Why did you want this to be the cover?

Deborah Willis: She said that one thing about being a Black woman, Black women have to be political about their work. Unfortunately, she died very young, but her work was significant. She has a daguerreotype in her hand. She's recreating the models that have been missed in 19th-century photography. Many of the women who were photographed, I published a book with Carla Williams, The Black Female Body in Photography. We started looking at how fringe photographers and photographers from London photographed some Black subjects. They were models.

This is just a way of thinking about how photography was used and models were incorporated in their work. The way that her drapery of her dress around her shoulders, freeing her as a desired subject. It's poetic in a sense, in having that experience.

Alison Stewart: In the 1900 to 1930s section, you quote Bell Hooks, who said, "The camera was the central instrument by which Blacks could disprove representations of us created by white folk." Why do you think the camera is the best tool to do this?

Deborah Willis: I believe because it visualizes the experience of the notion of how Black people were othered in print and in drawings. Having the opportunity to use the camera was documenting and representing the people in the community. Their style of dress, their activism, their sense of self. Beauty was an important aspect during this time period. The Harlem Renaissance writers were very active, and they were documenting their events.

We see a lot of pictures of Langston Hughes, who was part of the Harlem Renaissance and a writer. Langston Hughes, of course, wrote at a time period with Roy DeCarava and collaborated on a book of photographs, The Sweet Flypaper of Life. When we think about how photography represented Black people through the imagined nation of the photographer and the imagined experiences of the lived experience of the people, it just showed that people were human, that they had fun, that they mourned.

They had different experiences. That's why photography was central. There are also women who were fashion designers and women who had a desire for an education, like nursing. We'll see images of women in work, and that was another central issue for me to document these people.

Alison Stewart: It's so interesting. During these politically uncertain times, how is photography useful?

Deborah Willis: Useful in many ways. This is a way of evidence. We see photography as evidence. We see it also as a way of saying, "This is where we are. This is who we are, and this is family, and this is work, and this is children. This is education." Then also with the idea of sports and what happened with the Olympics at that time. Photographers were traveling all over the world. Black photographers were traveling all over the world documenting many events. Also, photographers actually created a beauty contest called the Beauty-- I can't think of it now, but it's The Fine Brown Frame.

They would have beauty contests for women so that they could have college scholarships. How do we think about beauty? Beauty was central because it was denied in many communities, and people didn't believe it in terms of education, and so why I wanted to focus on the photographers who looked at families and looked at the work of activism. The fact that when civil rights activists, young people, decided to dress up and wear suits and fancy dresses when they were protesting for the right to vote, they wanted the people who were stopping them to see them as human, to see them as part of the next generation.

We had this activity that was going on when I started thinking about how do we rearrange the photographic moment by having these moments within the photographic experience.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with photographer Deborah Willis. She's releasing the 25th anniversary edition of her book Reflections in Black. Would you share with me why portraiture is so important in shaping the Black identity?

Deborah Willis: It's one of the things that I remembered reading or the experience I remember reading that the photographic studio was the theater of desire. When we think about that as a place where people walked into a photographic studio, even today, when we visit photographer studios, we want to imagine how our lives will be for the future. Those photographs, when we were making portraits, were not just for today. Many of the photographers and their subjects believed that these photographs would last, and they would be part of a future.

A part of a future generation, but intergenerational experiences would happen within the family album or on the walls in their homes. This is the sense of document, a sense of evidence, but also representing a lived experience. That's why portraiture is important.

Alison Stewart: What piece do you like in this book of portraiture that is special to you?

Deborah Willis: They're all special, but I think about some of the images that, of course, Gordon Parks made at a time when he made the wonderful image of Ella Watson at work with the American flag and broom. We think about what story he wanted to tell about women and work, and the desire to document her and represent her as someone who was a proud woman. Also, there is a wonderful image by Scheherazade Tillet, who has an image of a prom night, and the young person, who is the high school student, has her grandmother and her mother dressing her, preparing her for prom.

It's like the community. They take her to the beauty shop. They take her to the store to buy the dress. Then we begin to see how important it is that there is a community of women who are photographing and posing, but also helping to shape her desire to be beautiful and have a grand night. That's one from the 20th century, and then of course, from the '40s, there's Gordon Parks. When I think about the images by Chuck Stewart and the musicians that he photographed over time, the way that he was in the studio with John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane and documenting those images, there's a silence that happens when I look at those photographs.

There's a sense of peace, and then again, the sense that the photographer was able to see the vision of the artist, that they are creating work and making a difference in their lives in the studio or on stage. These are moments that I think why portraiture is central when we're looking at images of people who want to be photographed, but also want people to see who they are.

Alison Stewart: I'm also curious about the community of photographers. We had Alison Shearer here, and her dad was Jack Shearer, the photographer who was a mentee of Gordon Brooks. He took that beautiful picture with John Kennedy saluting his father at the funeral, and how he overexposed it. That's how you could see Jackie's face. It was just interesting to hear her talk about him and to talk about Gordon Parks. I was wondering, was there a community of Black folks who were photographers?

Deborah Willis: Yes. One, I think of Kwame Brathwaite, who is just wonderful. I met him when I was 21-

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow.

Deborah Willis: -and just think about how his work and how his book, Black Is Beautiful, it's coming out. There was the Kimonge Workshop, and then there was Kwame Brathwaite's group, that also were working together in DC. They were a community of Black photojournalists. The community of photographers working together, they had a sense of connection. William McNeil also shared with me when he happened to see Gordon Parks' photograph on campus at Howard University. He said that, "All you needed was one shot, but Gordon Parks used six different bulbs on the ground, standing up," and he said, "Is this guy crazy? Why is he making so many photographs?"

Then they began to share moments, Morgan and Marvin Smith in Harlem during that time. This community of photographers were central to my development. I'm a photographer, but I spent most of my life documenting the photographers. When I had a chance to meet some of these photographers, I shared my experience. They were really happy that I noticed them, thanking me for this opportunity to share their work, because some of them have not had their work published in publications of books only, and sometimes in the Black press.

Teenie Harris in Pittsburgh is another. When I think about all of the stories that developed, he had something called the Double V campaign in World War II, when Black people wanted victory at home and victory abroad. Women made skirts with the double V, the wide skirts. They had hairstyles with the double V. These stories were part of the storytelling moment, visually telling these stories of Black people.

Alison Stewart: You teach at NYU now?

Deborah Willis: Yes.

Alison Stewart: This book contains figures like Tyler Mitchell, the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of Vogue. What is it about the new generation that excites you?

Deborah Willis: Just exciting to see Tyler and his growth, and also Denise Hewitt. These photographers who studied with me were just fantastic. To see that they are stepping into a new world that was closed to many Black photographers. They had no fear. They believed in their work. Tyler took a class with me and just leaned in, asking many questions. I remember when he photographed the Vogue cover, we happened to be on the same plane. He never said that he was photographing Beyoncé.

I was like, "Oh, do you know anybody there? I'll make sure you meet people," and he says, "I'm good. I'm good." Tyler is actually photographing young people, the generation from fashion to play and to leisure. He's actually looking at rests. Young people resting and making photographs of young millennials who are stylizing themselves, but also writing and making a new community for themselves.

Alison Stewart: What do your students want to know about the history of Black photography?

Deborah Willis: They are also going into their own family albums, and that's the fantastic aspect for me is to see how their third and fourth generations, that they know that their families preserve photographs. One student that I have now, Gabby Gates, has a generation of Blacks from South Africa and the American South. She has two distinct families. She's looking at photographs of her families and creating work about portraiture from that period. Many of them are also looking at ways to think about landscape, some from the Midwest, and what stories are happening in their communities.

Alison Stewart: Your son, Hank Willis Thomas, is the creator of The Embrace in Boston. It's Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King hugging. It's in the Boston Common, for people who haven't seen it. You're an artist. You're the mother of an artist. What did you want to instill in your son about art?

Deborah Willis: He was always fascinated with storytelling. When he was a child, my father also made photographs, and my father had albums of family images. I would place them as a child in the family album. Hank, when he was little, he would rearrange the story and ask my mother questions, and ask, "Why are Black and white? Why are they in color? Why is this person next to this person?" Then he would rearrange a visual story in the family album. Early on, he was reconstructing and thinking about photography in this way and asking difficult questions.

He also just created a piece for Davidson College, With These Hands. There's a wonderful experience of looking at the experience of the Black people who were enslaved, who built Davidson College, and there's these huge hands, acknowledging the development of the college and the workers there. His interest has not only been two-dimensional. It's now going into three-dimensional, because he wants people to have an experience of the work of the people, but also the love of community. That's something that he's been exploring a lot with his photographs and his three-dimensional work.

Alison Stewart: Has anyone taken a photograph of the two of you together?

Deborah Willis: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Okay, good. I was about to say.

Deborah Willis: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Before we go, you also created the Black Portraiture, a conference dedicated to African diasporic arts and culture. What's the motivation for this?

Deborah Willis: My colleagues at NYU, Awam Amkpa, Manthia Diawara, and Cheryl Finley, who's at Spelman, we wanted to have a broader conversation about Black portraiture, and we called it Black Portraitures because it's broad. We had it in South Africa, we had it in Florence, we had it in different places, like Tulsa, two weeks ago. We're going to have it in LA at the Getty next year in 2026. The theme is called The Black Built Environment. We want stories told. We want writers and artists to exchange stories about what it means to make a portrait.

Alison Stewart: I've been speaking to Deborah Willis. She is releasing the 25th anniversary edition of her book Reflections in Black. It is publishing on November 18th, Tia Company, the book's release. She's also curated an exhibit at NYU. It's on display until December 21st. It has been a pleasure to have you.

Deborah Willis: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Alison Stewart: There's more All Of It on the way. Author S. A. Cosby joined us last week for our October Get Lit with All Of It book club event at the NYPL. Coming up, we'll hear selections of that conversation, as well as a live performance from musician Yaya Bey. That's coming up next after the news.