Connections Through the Lens: Unveiling the Texas African American Photography Archive

Book Synopsis

Kinship and Community: Highlights from the Texas African American Photography Archive honors the vibrant history of photography produced by and for Black communities in Texas.

Spanning from eighteenth-century ambrotype portraits by unknown artists to the work of independent photographers documenting segregated towns and districts in the mid-1900s, a profound collection of photography emerged from and for Black communities in Texas. Established in 1995 by Alan Govenar and Kaleta Doolin, the Texas African American Photography Archive (TAAP) houses over sixty thousand negatives and prints from this heritage. Kinship and Community encapsulates the archive’s extraordinary photographs into an evocative tribute to the medium and its transformative essence. Brimming with joy and dignity, the images within this collection represent exceptional individuals and groups while capturing the parades, church gatherings, graduations, and sports activities that characterized daily life. These uplifting representations of Black existence, in contrast to mainstream media’s discriminatory stereotypes, contributed subtly yet significantly to the civil rights movement.

Currently, community photography serves as a paradigm for collaborative image creation, its vibrancy arising from this amalgamation of ethics and aesthetics. Numerous photographers featured in Kinship and Community acquired their skills in the military or through other Black photographers. As the civil rights movement advanced, their talent and creativity empowered them to forge a positive vision for African American communities in an extensively segregated environment. Years later, the moment has arrived to honor the achievements of these gifted photographers, including A. B. Bell, Marion Butts, Rodney Evans, Elnora Frazier, Alonzo Jordan, Benny Joseph, and Eugene Roquemore.

Published in collaboration by Aperture and Documentary Arts.