Art embellishes the various facets of Black culture, history, and society beyond the fixedness of the written record. Art expresses a vision of futurity that cannot be imparted solely by facts and figures. Like the vèvè used within the diaspora to draw the powers of the ancestors into the present to effect connection across time and space, so too do the images presented here depict the hope of humanity and dignity across generations. Stare into the proud eyes of Jean-Jacques Dessalines who liberated an island of enslaved people and helped to establish a Black nation. Look upon the peering eyes of a white observer of a Black funeral in the cover of dark, remembering that they are fêting their ancestor into another world. Think on the dreams of progress held by a Black family recording their growth despite slavery’s existence. Dream of friendship as expressed in art from selections of 19th-century Black women’s scrapbooks while slavery was at its apogee. Sing of love and hope with mixed-race African “Dream Lovers” from a time when “miscegenation” was a crime. See through the cracks and creases of a past we think long behind us, to a future that would have seemed a thing beyond our ancestors’ wildest dreams.
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Arabic Fragment, a West African Gris-Gris, 1773. A gris-gris or wanga is a traditional West African talisman consisting of transcribed prayers, roots, herbs, and other objects used to ward off evil. An enslaved Islamic priest wrote this snippet of Arabic calligraphy. It was written in Leyogan in colonial Saint-Domingue (now Ayiti/Haiti). Translation: “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful Say: He is Allah, the One and Only! Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not nor is He begotten. And there is none like unto Him.” |
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“Desalines” from Código Formado por los Negros de la Isla de Santo Domingo de la Parte Francesa, Hoi Estado de Hayti (Cádiz, 1810). Engraving. “Incendie du Cap. Révolte Général des
Neègres. Massacre des Blanca” from Saint-Domingue, ou
Histoire de Ses Révolutions (Paris, 1815). Hand-colored
engraving. After a decade of revolt, former Saint-Domingue slaves faced down Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, which wanted to re-enslave them. Arriving at Cap-Français in 1802, Bonaparte’s brother-in-law Charles Leclerc, ordered General Henri Christophe to surrender; he refused, and revolutionaries burned the city. Two years later, Haiti was an independent nation, the first Black state established by former slaves, and popularly known as the “horrors of San Domingo” due to claims of wanton violence against whites by Haitians. Haiti’s presence angered Euro-American powers and they ostracized the nation and threatened its sovereignty. |
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“A Negro Funeral,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine
(New York, 1859). Wood engraving. Across the African Diaspora, the honoring of the ancestors is important. Encapsulated by the Ghanaian Akan adinkra nwame nwu na mawu (“God cannot die, so I cannot die”), the belief was an especially cherished one. During slavery, Black funerals were held in secrecy, leading to lurid depictions by outsiders unversed in the joy of carrying an elder into the realm of the ancestors. Funeral rites serve to connect the recently-deceased and the community with the traditions that they maintained and would pass down for generations. |
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Paul Laurence Dunbar and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Dream Lovers: An
Operatic Romance (London, 1898). Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was not only a composer and musician but also a civil rights activist. When he learned that Paul Laurence Dunbar, America’s most celebrated “Negro” poet, was in London, Coleridge-Taylor sought him out and asked to set Dunbar’s poems to music. They created “African Romances” in 1897 and in 1898 Dunbar penned the lyrics to Coleridge-Taylor’s music and produced “Dream Lovers” in 1898. It premiered in a recital hall in Croydon, England. |
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Photo Illustrators, Young African American Woman (Philadelphia, 1930). Gelatin silver. Gift of Joseph Kelly. The identity of the “young African American woman” in the photograph and its former owner are unknown. The deep creases and chipping may be indicative of being folded and carried around by someone who valued something as special and expensive as a photograph. The young woman looks at us through the creases, from the past to the future; she hoped would remember her image. |
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Watercolor by Mary Ann Elizabeth Codgell, ca [1849?]. Stevens-Cogdell/Sanders-Venning Collection. |
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Poem by Cordelia Sanders, ca. [1849?]. Stevens-Cogdell/Sanders-Venning Collection. |
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Sarah Mapps Douglass, Honeysuckle, ca. 1845. Watercolor. This image, created by Sarah Mapps Douglass, depicts a stem of a honeysuckle. Douglass was an elite African American Quaker in Philadelphia who was known for being an educator and community activist. |
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Afro-American Historical Family Record (Augusta, Ga., 1899). Chromolithograph. In the wake of Emancipation, the maintenance of family records can be seen as a legitimization of the Black family and their progress from enslavement. This dream of a better family life can be seen in the contrast of conditions under slavery with an idealized liberated future that can lead to becoming someone worthy of being depicted in portraiture. It is citizenship idealized. |
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Mangbetu Harp (Democratic Republic of the Congo), ca. 1910. Loan from Dr. Deirdre Cooper-Owens. The harp’s neck is surmounted by a woman’s head with a traditional Mangbetu coiffure. The coiled copper wire found on the neck of the harp represents the geometric body painting that often adorned Mangbetu women. |
