The Texas African American Photography Archive collection demonstrates what happens when we shift our attention away from the exceptional moments of Black American life ... and pay attention to the local and regional scenes where Black people build livelihoods, neighborhoods, and intergenerational networks of belonging.
A new exhibition from Nicole R. Fleetwood, curator, art historian, and Paulette Goddard Professor in Media, Culture, and Communication, offers a rare glimpse into the history of Black community photographers working across Texas from 1942 to 1984.
The show opened in September at the CPW gallery in Kingston, NY and will be on view through January 11, 2026. Fleetwood will be in conversation with photographer Rahim Fortune at the CPW gallery on November 16.
Kinship & Community: Selections from the Texas African American Photography Archive focuses on local photographers working in both urban centers like Dallas and Houston and smaller towns in East Texas, dedicated to documenting the portraits and events of their close-knit communities.
Fleetwood argues that these skilled image-makers, in capturing the people and rituals of everyday life — at parties, rodeos, church meetings, parades, political gatherings, and in school photos, helped to define the vernacular Black experience in twentieth-century America.
The exhibition is accompanied by the forthcoming publication Kinship & Community: Selections from the Texas African American Photography Archive, edited by Nicole R. Fleetwood and Brian Wallis (Aperture and Documentary Arts).
NYU doctoral candidates Eva Cilman (Media, Culture, and Communication) and Anisa Jackson (American Studies) provided research assistance.
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