A photographic celebration and exploration of Black identity and experience through the twentieth century from the founder and curator of the hit multimedia platform Black Archives.
About the book:
Renata Cherlise’s family loved capturing their lives in photographs and home movies, sparking her love of archival photography. Following in her family’s footsteps, Cherlise established Black Archives, which presents a nuanced representation of Black people across time living vibrant, ordinary lives.
Black Archives is a stunning collection of timeless images that tell powerful, joyful stories of everyday life and shed light on Black culture’s dynamic, enduring influence through the generations. The images showcase reunions, nights out on the town, parents and children, church and school functions, holidays, big life events, family vacations, moments at home, and many more occasions of leisure, excitement, reflection, and pride.
Featuring more than three hundred images that spotlight the iconic and the candid, Black Archives offers a nuanced compendium of Black memory and imagination.
"It is my desire that the photographs collected here honor the many stories that were lost in transition, and by that sharing these archiving practices, I can help amplify the stories we do have through collective kinship."
- Renata Cherlise, author of Black Archives
Book Captions:
- Photo 1: David and Stephen Hunter BOSTON, MA CIRCA 1955
- Photo 2: The author’s aunt Brenda, JACKSONVILLE, FL 1979
- Photo 3: Benny Woods, CIRCA 1940
- Photo 4: At the beach 1930S
- Photo 5: Mother and son, TORONTO, CANADA 1978
- Photo 6: Samuel Johnson holding his grandchildren Shanice, George, and Shernelle