Documenting Philadelphia's African American Community History

FAIN: PY-234588-16

African American Museum in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA 19106-1504)
Adrienne Whaley (Project Director: June 2015 to February 2016)
Helen E. Haynes (Project Director: February 2016 to December 2018)
Gina J. Range (Project Director: December 2018 to August 2019)

A community event to explore Philadelphia's African American history through community photograph contributed by members of the public, as well as programming to highlight photography at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. In addition to scanning community materials, the event would include workshops on family history and photographic preservation presented by the African American Genealogy Group, a lecture on the life of local African American photographer Jack Franklin, whose archives were left to the museum in 1986, and a film screening of the documentary, Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People.

The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) uses art, culture, and historical witness to bring together diverse communities in greater appreciation of Black experiences. Partnering with the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion (DDFR), AAMP proposes to further its mission through a 3-day engagement combining digitization, exploration & explanation of African American photographic culture. This project will include a screening of the documentary Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of A People, a day of public digitization of personal family photographs, multiple workshops on the relationships between photography and family & community history, and a finale featuring curated photos and stories from the various stages of this project. To successfully bring this to fruition, AAMP will partner with the African American Genealogy Group (AAGG) to assist in outreach and marketing while DDFR will manage digitization and other technical aspects of the project.