Pictures exhibit turns ‘The Black Gaze’ on Champaign-Urbana leaders

CHAMPAIGN — When Barbara Suggs-Mason was appointed superintendent of Matteson’s elementary college district, she got down to give the Black and Hispanic scholar physique the identical prime quality schooling she had seen as a instructor and administrator in Evanston and Oak Park. 

Suggs-Mason made certain her college students might achieve actions like chess, music and underwater robotics. She knew her method was working when she ran right into a colleague from the northwest suburbs, who knew her district as a result of that they had beat his son’s underwater robotics staff at a Shedd Aquarium competitors. 

“That’s what I want to hear – that our kids can compete with everybody and they can display their excellence,” Suggs-Mason mentioned. 

After her superintendentship, she retired again to her hometown of Champaign-Urbana, the place she co-founded the Champaign County African American Heritage Trail. 

Suggs-Mason is one in all 30 native African American leaders featured in an exhibit on the University YMCA in Champaign, “The Black Gaze.” 

The photographer is Dwayne Banks Jr. He graduated in December from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a grasp’s of science in journalism. 

At a gap occasion on Thursday, Banks mentioned the final time a photographer introduced collectively so many native Black leaders was over 40 years in the past, and the photographer was white. He mentioned that he wished to inform Black tales from a Black perspective. 

“During the interview process, we were able to bond-me and the individuals that participated in this,” Banks mentioned. “We’re black. What does that mean? It’s historical, cultural, societal, economical even.”

He mentioned he seems to be as much as some white photographers, however he additionally sees them overrepresenting tragic Black tales. 

“Stop portraying the negative and start recognizing, there’s Black joy,” Banks mentioned. “There’s Black excellence.”

The exhibit additionally featured an area mayor, fireplace chief, police chief, musicians, professors and Champaign County NAACP President Minnie Pearson. Pearson mentioned it was a thrill to be concerned within the exhibit and to see the character of people and the neighborhood mirrored so effectively within the pictures.

“That is the essence of our community to go away, learn, come back and help others to prosper.”