rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
The images matter more than their maker, so by way of thanks:
Director of a county arts council with her youngest son.
Director of a county arts council with her youngest son.
robert blu
quiet photographer
Excellent photo Robert, her expression says so much...
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
This morning I published on Facebook and Instagram the last installment of 365+ photographs in the slideshow of this project, and accompanied them with the afterword below.
I’ll keep posting images from the project in the gallery, and will post those here from time to time, and once I settle on the next stages of publication—dedicated website, books of different formats/girths—I’ll announce those here as well.
Thanks to the community of RFF for the various ways that the examples of its mentors, colleagues, friends made this project possible.
——————————
Juneteenth began 156 years ago, two years after an emancipatory gesture affirming the radical premise of American equality declared 90 years earlier. Mere numbers can numb, like a schoolchild faced, for the first time, with subtracting 1619 from 2021 with zero understanding of how many deaths and how much sheer perseverance are contained in the difference.
Forever belated in history, Juneteenth’s promise of liberation arrives one enlightened heart at a time in the season of longest light. Those who think of it as peculiar to Texas should consider, these millennia later, whether Jesus was confined to a few heroic moments in Galilee. African America may still be going through martyrdom and witness, like early Christianity on distant continents, but Juneteenth affirms permission and potential, possibility and promise of an everlasting freedom.
Freedom to do what? Freedom to liberate and be liberated. Once you have known this, body and soul, it is no abstract conundrum. It is fundamental and clear as breathing, smiling, singing, praying, lovingkindness without borders, unconfined by fear, unshackled from malignancies of control and domination. Juneteenth is a good neighbor to the Fourth of July, and supplies what the Fourth so long lacked, equal freedom for all. (For remedial reading, see the Frederick Douglass 1852 speech “What, to the American Slave, is the Fourth of July?”)
These are the last of nearly 400 photographs in a yearlong project of meditation on Juneteenth that began in mourning and witness at the funeral of George Floyd in Raeford, North Carolina, yet culminated in the long deferred, largely symbolic, but still meaningful vote to affirm Juneteenth as a federal holiday. A few hours before this news broke, I had turned in my grant report on this project to NCArts. The synchronicity was delicious, for though my role is infinitesimal its timing could not have been better.
I wish to thank Chris Dunn of the Arts Council of Moore County on behalf of NCArts for supporting my work. I have been immeasurably enriched by the dozens of talents, leaders, ministers, and activists who welcomed me and my cameras into their neighborhoods, businesses, churches, organizations, and events in and around the Carolina Sandhills, and I though I mostly respect their privacy here—in this medium where social and political turmoil can triangulate with personal identity with irreparable consequences for the latter—, I will acknowledge them once I settle on the next stage of publishing the project; without their faces and names, their acts and beliefs, their exemplary devotion to justice and non-violence and mercy, the project was nothing but an aging man’s pale dream of redemption. To all I photographed, thank you for letting me see you as you were, as you are, and as I hope we all may be.
I’ll keep posting images from the project in the gallery, and will post those here from time to time, and once I settle on the next stages of publication—dedicated website, books of different formats/girths—I’ll announce those here as well.
Thanks to the community of RFF for the various ways that the examples of its mentors, colleagues, friends made this project possible.
——————————
Juneteenth began 156 years ago, two years after an emancipatory gesture affirming the radical premise of American equality declared 90 years earlier. Mere numbers can numb, like a schoolchild faced, for the first time, with subtracting 1619 from 2021 with zero understanding of how many deaths and how much sheer perseverance are contained in the difference.
Forever belated in history, Juneteenth’s promise of liberation arrives one enlightened heart at a time in the season of longest light. Those who think of it as peculiar to Texas should consider, these millennia later, whether Jesus was confined to a few heroic moments in Galilee. African America may still be going through martyrdom and witness, like early Christianity on distant continents, but Juneteenth affirms permission and potential, possibility and promise of an everlasting freedom.
Freedom to do what? Freedom to liberate and be liberated. Once you have known this, body and soul, it is no abstract conundrum. It is fundamental and clear as breathing, smiling, singing, praying, lovingkindness without borders, unconfined by fear, unshackled from malignancies of control and domination. Juneteenth is a good neighbor to the Fourth of July, and supplies what the Fourth so long lacked, equal freedom for all. (For remedial reading, see the Frederick Douglass 1852 speech “What, to the American Slave, is the Fourth of July?”)
These are the last of nearly 400 photographs in a yearlong project of meditation on Juneteenth that began in mourning and witness at the funeral of George Floyd in Raeford, North Carolina, yet culminated in the long deferred, largely symbolic, but still meaningful vote to affirm Juneteenth as a federal holiday. A few hours before this news broke, I had turned in my grant report on this project to NCArts. The synchronicity was delicious, for though my role is infinitesimal its timing could not have been better.
I wish to thank Chris Dunn of the Arts Council of Moore County on behalf of NCArts for supporting my work. I have been immeasurably enriched by the dozens of talents, leaders, ministers, and activists who welcomed me and my cameras into their neighborhoods, businesses, churches, organizations, and events in and around the Carolina Sandhills, and I though I mostly respect their privacy here—in this medium where social and political turmoil can triangulate with personal identity with irreparable consequences for the latter—, I will acknowledge them once I settle on the next stage of publishing the project; without their faces and names, their acts and beliefs, their exemplary devotion to justice and non-violence and mercy, the project was nothing but an aging man’s pale dream of redemption. To all I photographed, thank you for letting me see you as you were, as you are, and as I hope we all may be.
robert blu
quiet photographer
A real strong project, thanks for posting, updating and keeping us informed.
And the photos in the last set are good, are..alive!
And the photos in the last set are good, are..alive!
Retro-Grouch
Veteran
Respect, empathy, and compassion... all in such short supply these days, but here in your work in abundance. Thank you!
j.scooter
Veteran
Hey Robert
Just a quick bump and reminder that this thread needs more pictures
Just a quick bump and reminder that this thread needs more pictures
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
James, thank you for the prod. I really dislike the faintest sensation of self-promotion, so my inclination is to not amplify myself via this thread—but you are right, there can and should be more images of the people and communities that inspired the project.
Reverend Gray praying before leading the memorial assembly in a hymn.
Reverend Robbins of Fair Promise AME Zion church, jamming jazz with his music director (Matthew, Hammond M organ) 15 minutes before the Sunday service.
Reggie, deacon (and singer) at Greater Zion Holy Temple (just down Oddfellow Street from Fair Promise)
Arlisa Burch gave me the eye because A/she didn’t know that Dorothy, the senior Easter Bunny, had given me permission to photograph the socially distanced Easter Egg event, and B/we hadn’t met yet. We had a good talk immediately afterward, and I was able to give her this print later at a Habitat for Humanity house opening.
Reverend Gray in everyday mother mode, with her son Timothy on the eve of his departure for his first adult job in Pennsylvania.
Reverend Gray praying before leading the memorial assembly in a hymn.
Reverend Robbins of Fair Promise AME Zion church, jamming jazz with his music director (Matthew, Hammond M organ) 15 minutes before the Sunday service.
Reggie, deacon (and singer) at Greater Zion Holy Temple (just down Oddfellow Street from Fair Promise)
Arlisa Burch gave me the eye because A/she didn’t know that Dorothy, the senior Easter Bunny, had given me permission to photograph the socially distanced Easter Egg event, and B/we hadn’t met yet. We had a good talk immediately afterward, and I was able to give her this print later at a Habitat for Humanity house opening.
Reverend Gray in everyday mother mode, with her son Timothy on the eve of his departure for his first adult job in Pennsylvania.
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
Well done Robert. Much respect for your hard work
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
Dankjewel, Heer GXR ;-)
Beemermark
Veteran
Where are the NC Sand Hills?
Shab
Veteran
Great work Robert! Really interesting and much more... I didn't know anything about Juneteenth... thank you!
Great pictures, words... I can feel the life in some portraits... love it! If you publish a book, please tell me!
I hope you are fine.
Great pictures, words... I can feel the life in some portraits... love it! If you publish a book, please tell me!
I hope you are fine.
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
They stretch patchily from the Carolinas into Georgia, 90-130 miles inland from the current coast. As you might suppose, it’s an old coastline—a tremendous amount of sand on the surface, with pines predominant overhead.
In North Carolina, the Sandhills comprise much of Moore County and Richmond County, but spill into the counties of Lee, Hoke, Cumberland, Scotland, Montgomery. I made photographs in communities in all these counties, though mostly in Moore (where my funding originated), followed by Lee.
This disproportion reflects communities where I was welcomed, and made personal connections, versus less populous towns and outlying areas where (for instance) queries to a county branch of the NAACP were unanswered, or efforts to connect on the street or in a store did not lead to deeper wider connections. The fact that this project originated deep in the pandemic made things hard enough (“Who is this masked white guy who wants to photograph us up close?”)
Historically, much of this area was colonized by Highland Scots in the 1730s, so many family names, in people of all colors, are McLeod, McLaurin, McDonald, and so on. Downtown Fayetteville near the Hay Market has a marker commemorating the arrival of Highlanders in 1739. I found this, too, fascinating (my own traceable ancestry is mostly English and German), and if I had “world enough and time,” a project on the persistence of traits and values, good and bad, associated with Scottish Highlanders could provide months and years of similar documentary work.
The history of the Lumbee Indians is another fascinating story of cultural intertwinings and overlays, in this region of the upper Haw/Cape Fear and upper Lumbee/Pee Dee rivers. Some African Americans escaped to Lumbee settlements and became part of their families and culture; after the Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction in the South, their overlap and alliances versus the white supremacy establishment grew more strongly intertwined around Lumberton, Pembroke, Laurinburg. The federal government still refuses to recognize the Lumbee as a tribe, and one ought to ask (as many, many people have asked and argued for over a century): how much does this particular refusal owe to the persistence of a white supremacy seeking to delegitimize the assimilation of indigenous/African-American cultures and interests?
I’d love to explore those histories in faces and streets and landscapes and personal stories, but now I’ve moved 130 miles NW to Winston-Salem, and other projects of historical/cultural interest closer to home will reveal themselves sooner or later.
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
June 19 2021 was the last day I made photographs for this project. It was also the first Juneteenth recognized as a national holiday. I was at Cardinal Park, a small recreation area south of Pinebluff, NC, opened by African American businessman Felton Capel in 1962, and now maintained by his son Mitch. The elder Capel was the integral half of a friendship with a white man, Voit Gilmore, who together pioneered the low-key nonconfrontational desegregation of Moore County, by sitting together at movies (in the “whites only” section rather than the “colored” balcony, or playing golf together at clubs where membership was a white privilege. There are streets named for both men now.
The Moore County NAACP had a booth at the Juneteenth Festival. The area director, Ms. Watkins, is indefatigable in organizing for voter rights, which are once more at risk for being rolled back. I think the group portrait shows their grit and determination.
When Mitch Capel and I were discussing how my photo-project might fit into the Juneteenth festival, one of the ideas was to pin paper prints, or hang aluminum prints, on the numerous pines around the picnic areas and lake. But thunderstorms can show up almost any day in June—bad for prints and for gatherings— so I decided to bring the big iMac to run the slide show of ~365 images in a shelter if the weather was good. Mitch, who is a storyteller, decided to pin the names of men and women lynched, executed, or killed for the least pretext, based on their color. I photographed a number of these. If you don’t know the story of Emmet Till, look it up.
Here, George Floyd’s name is pinned in the background, where the two representatives of the Carolina Rangers, Kenny and Jeff, were riding in to make their presentation. One of the services the Rangers provide is search and rescue in terrain unfriendly to searchers on foot or in vehicles. As someone who spent a great deal of his life as a writer—which is to say, looking at life every day and asking What If? before putting pen to paper—I wondered how things might have turned out for George Floyd if the Carolina Rangers had been riding through his neighborhood on his fatal day.
And so, as I photographed their approach through the pines pinned with names we have come to know by heart, I imagined Emmet’s tree calling out, “George, are the Rangers coming?” and George Floyd’s tree answering “Yes, Emmet, the Rangers are coming. The Carolina Rangers are here.”
The Moore County NAACP had a booth at the Juneteenth Festival. The area director, Ms. Watkins, is indefatigable in organizing for voter rights, which are once more at risk for being rolled back. I think the group portrait shows their grit and determination.
When Mitch Capel and I were discussing how my photo-project might fit into the Juneteenth festival, one of the ideas was to pin paper prints, or hang aluminum prints, on the numerous pines around the picnic areas and lake. But thunderstorms can show up almost any day in June—bad for prints and for gatherings— so I decided to bring the big iMac to run the slide show of ~365 images in a shelter if the weather was good. Mitch, who is a storyteller, decided to pin the names of men and women lynched, executed, or killed for the least pretext, based on their color. I photographed a number of these. If you don’t know the story of Emmet Till, look it up.
Here, George Floyd’s name is pinned in the background, where the two representatives of the Carolina Rangers, Kenny and Jeff, were riding in to make their presentation. One of the services the Rangers provide is search and rescue in terrain unfriendly to searchers on foot or in vehicles. As someone who spent a great deal of his life as a writer—which is to say, looking at life every day and asking What If? before putting pen to paper—I wondered how things might have turned out for George Floyd if the Carolina Rangers had been riding through his neighborhood on his fatal day.
And so, as I photographed their approach through the pines pinned with names we have come to know by heart, I imagined Emmet’s tree calling out, “George, are the Rangers coming?” and George Floyd’s tree answering “Yes, Emmet, the Rangers are coming. The Carolina Rangers are here.”
Shab
Veteran
Thank you so much Robert...
I didn't know who was Emmet Till and his final history... we have a long long way to walk to get human rights for all. And you are working for it with this pictures, this project.
I didn't know who was Emmet Till and his final history... we have a long long way to walk to get human rights for all. And you are working for it with this pictures, this project.
j.scooter
Veteran
Robert: Your grit and determination were also on display and reflected in the eyes of your portrait sitters.
Thank you for doing this project. For me it is a reflection of the past and a glimpse into the future.
This brought a tear to my eye.
Thank you for doing this project. For me it is a reflection of the past and a glimpse into the future.
This brought a tear to my eye.