Candids of black women activists

I love candid or casual photos, and here are some old ones I found recently.

Black women activists, Elizabeth Brooks and Emma Hackley, their photos are from the Library of Congress archives,.

I first saw these wonderful photos when they were recently posted on Open Culture, HERE.,

"from a Library of Congress archive of nineteenth-century African American activists from the collection of William Henry Richards, a professor at Howard University Law School from 1890 to 1928 and a staunch campaigner for civil rights and liberties. Most of the portraits are of the formal, staged variety, but we also have the more relaxed, even playful series of poses from activists Elizabeth Brooks and Emma Hackley, above. Richards’ collection, writes curator Beverly Brannon at the LoC site, includes many “people who joined him and others working in the suffrage and temperance movements and in education, journalism and the arts.” 

I also was led to see some more recent black women activists, and since this is very much candid, I want to share it as well.

Gloria Richardson pushes away the bayonet of a National Guardsman during a protest in Cambridge, MD., in 1963. photo from Wikipedia

 

The Root, July 2015, published the following:

The Defiant One: Why You Should Know Civil Rights Icon Gloria Richardson

Some called her “Glorious Gloria.” Others referred to her as the second coming of Harriet Tubman. Coincidentally, activist Gloria Richardson was just 24 minutes away from a stop on the Underground Railroad when an iconic photo of her defiantly pushing away the bayonet of a National Guardsman was taken during a 1963 protest in Cambridge, Md. Her fearless, revolutionary deeds have become an inspiration for many black activists today.

“I got out there first and I ran across the line,” Richardson, 93, tells The Root about that fateful encounter with the U.S. National Guard. “He was about to stick me in the back with the bayonet; I couldn’t believe it.”

As head of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, Richardson was one of the few women in a leadership role during the civil rights movement. And while she received accolades for her work in Cambridge at the March on Washington in August 1963, like many women in the movement, Richardson was not permitted to speak, even though she was listed on the program. Her story is the subject of a new biography, slated for publication in 2016, titled

Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald published her biography, The Struggle Is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation. and has started a Facebook page about her HERE.  She was honored in February when Feb. 11, 2017 was declared Gloria Richardson day in Maryland.

There are many more photos out there, but here's one recent one which seems to say a lot for our times. (I'll leave it in full color)


May, 2016, Tess Asplund stands with raised fist opposite protesters from the Nordic Resistance Movement in Borlänge. Photograph: David Lagerlöf/Expo/TT News Agency/Press Association Images 

"The lone protest of a woman defying a march of 300 uniformed neo-Nazis is set to become an iconic image of resistance to the rise of the far-right in Scandinavia.  from woman-defied-neo-nazis-sweden-tess-asplund

 I submit these photos as my link for Sepia Saturday this week. The theme is from this photo:

"Our theme image this week is taken from an old scanned negative of unknown origin which forms part of my ever-expanding collection of long-lost photographs and negatives. It appealed to me for a number of reasons - it's a great composition, a fine study in shadows and light and a perfect, unposed portrait of two children.

 Today's quote:

People say, "What is the sense of our small effort?" They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.

Dorothy Day