BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker's Portraits of Remarkable Black Women: Part II

DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker's Portraits of Remarkable Black Women: Part II:

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Description of Pictures: I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker's Portraits of Remarkable Black Women: Part II
February 10, 2023 – September 10, 2023
The Portrait Gallery recently acquired all 75 portraits from the Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer’s series and is celebrating the acquisition with a two-part exhibition. Like the first installation, the second features portraits of women who have made significant contributions to the arts, activism, literature, politics, and sports, among other disciplines. Subjects include portraits of Althea Gibson, Odetta, Cicely Tyson and Oprah Winfrey. I Dream a World is co-curated by Ann Shumard, senior curator of photographs, and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, former senior historian and director of history, research and scholarly programs.

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[1] IDREAM_230209_001.JPG	[2] IDREAM_230209_005.JPG	[3] IDREAM_230209_009.JPG
[4] IDREAM_230209_011.JPG	[5] IDREAM_230209_013.JPG	[6] IDREAM_230209_016.JPG
[7] IDREAM_230209_023.JPG	[8] IDREAM_230209_029.JPG	[9] IDREAM_230209_042.JPG
[10] IDREAM_230209_046.JPG	[11] IDREAM_230209_055.JPG	[12] IDREAM_230209_063.JPG
[13] IDREAM_230209_068.JPG	[14] IDREAM_230209_082.JPG	[15] IDREAM_230209_087.JPG
[16] IDREAM_230209_089.JPG	[17] IDREAM_230209_098.JPG	[18] IDREAM_230209_106.JPG
[19] IDREAM_230209_109.JPG	[20] IDREAM_230209_119.JPG	[21] IDREAM_230209_129.JPG
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. IDREAM_230209_005.JPG: I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker's Portraits of Remarkable Black Women
2. IDREAM_230209_009.JPG: I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker’s Portraits of Remarkable Black Women (Part II) February 10, 2023 - August 27, 2023 "The photographer Brian Lanker possesses an acute eye and a brave heart. He has discovered women whose images show us the high cost of living and the rich reward of thriving." -- Maya Angelou, 1989 Since the publication of I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America over thirty years ago, African American women have gained greater visibility on the national stage and in the global arena. Yet the book’s seventy-five photographs and interviews have never seemed more relevant. Illuminating the historical and cultural contributions of several remarkable individuals, this two-part exhibition features portraits of writers, entertainers, athletes, activists, and politicians, whose legacies were documented by the photojournalist Brian Lanker in the late 1980s. “I felt the need to prevent these historical lives from being forgotten,” he wrote. “Many of the women opened ‘the doors’ and many advanced America through the modern civil rights and women’s movement." Each of the subjects in I Dream a World overcame tremendous adversity. Their personal challenges, powerful journeys, and unwavering persistence offer inspiration for us all. While penning the foreword for the book, Maya Angelou observed, “These women regard us, understand us, gaze through each of us, into a beyond. . . . The sameness of their gaze informs us that they will not be removed, that indeed although they are shaken, bruised, and uprooted, they are determined to remain."
3. IDREAM_230209_011.JPG: Brian Lanker’s I Dream a World series was a partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron. This presentation of I Dream a World was made possible in part through generous support from Accenture. The exhibition also received support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative.
4. IDREAM_230209_016.JPG: Myrlie Evers-Williams born 1933 "But we keep a-coming. Strong as we’ve always been, more aware of ourselves, our strength, and power potential, willing to take more risks." -- Myrlie Evers-Williams Born Vicksburg, Mississippi Myrlie Evers shared Medgar Evers’s strong commitment to civil rights and worked alongside her husband until his assassination outside their Jackson, Mississippi, home in June 1963. White supremacist Byron De La Beckwith was tried for Medgar Evers’s murder but was freed when all-white juries deadlocked after two trials in 1964. Myrlie Evers remained steadfast in her determination to see her husband’s killer brought to justice. Due largely to her efforts, the case was reopened in 1990. De La Beckwith was convicted in 1994 and sentenced to life in prison. Myrlie Evers-Williams remained dedicated to justice through her public and private sector endeavors. Elected to chair the NAACP when it was struggling on multiple fronts, she is credited with stabilizing its finances and reviving its standing as the nation’s leading civil rights organization during her tenure (1995–98). Today, she supports civil rights initiatives through the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute. Gelatin silver print, 1987Myrlie Evers-Williams, born 1933 1987
5. IDREAM_230209_023.JPG: Dorothy Height 1912–2010 "Black women are the backbone of every institution, but sometimes they are not recognized as even being there, even in the civil rights movement." -- Dorothy Height Born Richmond, Virginia Saluted by President Obama as “the godmother of the civil rights movement,” Dorothy Height dedicated her life to the twin causes of civil rights and Black women’s empowerment. Beginning her career as a social worker in New York City in the early 1930s, Height later held executive positions with the YWCA, where she helped lead efforts to desegregate the Y’s facilities nationwide in the 1940s. Mentored by founder Mary McLeod Bethune, Height served as president of the National Council of Negro Women (1957–1997), where she championed the organization’s commitment to building women’s leadership skills, strengthening the family, and combatting poverty. Simultaneously at the forefront of the struggle for racial justice, Height worked in tandem with leaders such Martin Luther King Jr., but her substantial contributions rarely received acknowledgment due to her gender. This was rectified to some degree in 1994, when President Clinton awarded Height the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Gelatin silver print, 1988
6. IDREAM_230209_029.JPG: Betty Shabazz 1936–1997 "One cannot be bitter because you block your own progress." -- Betty Shabazz Born Pinehurst, Georgia On February 21, 1965, Betty Shabazz sat in the front row of Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom as she waited for her husband, civil rights activist and Black nationalist leader Malcolm X, to speak. When gunfire erupted, Shabazz dove to shield her four young daughters from the barrage of bullets that claimed their father’s life. Widowed, pregnant with twins, and having her daughters to support, Shabazz faced daunting challenges. A Sunni Muslim, Shabazz made the hajj shortly after Malcolm X’s assassination and credited this spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca with putting her “back on track.” She resumed her education, and, after completing her studies with a doctoral degree (1975), she held teaching and administrative positions at New York City’s Medgar Evers College. Dedicated to preserving Malcolm X’s legacy, Shabazz focused on her husband’s commitment to “human rights and self-determination.” Her strength in the face of profound tragedy made her a powerful symbol of resilience. Gelatin silver print, 1988
7. IDREAM_230209_042.JPG: Oprah Winfrey born 1954 "I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that’s how I operate my life." -- Oprah Winfrey Born Kosciusko, Mississippi Combining personal appeal with strong business acumen, Oprah Winfrey has built a lucrative and highly influential media empire. Her early broadcast experience included anchoring local news, but Winfrey found her true calling in 1984 when she took the helm of an underperforming television talk show in Chicago. Her empathetic persona struck an immediate chord with viewers and soon opened the door to other opportunities, including her Oscar–nominated performance in The Color Purple (1985). In 1986—the year The Oprah Winfrey Show gained a broad-based, national audience through syndication—Winfrey founded her production company, Harpo. She expanded her brand with additional film performances and the publication of O Magazine (2000–20). After twenty-five years as the nation’s premier daytime talk show host, Winfrey ended The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2011 and established the OWN television network. Her impact continues through her philanthropy, her role as a media executive, and her high-profile celebrity interviews Gelatin silver print, 1988
8. IDREAM_230209_046.JPG: Althea Gibson 1927–2003 "I knew that I was an unusual, talented girl through the grace of God. I didn’t need to prove that to myself. I only wanted to prove it to my opponents." -- Althea Gibson Born Silver, South Carolina Before claiming eleven Grand Slam titles and her sport’s top ranking, tennis great Althea Gibson had to contend with racism that excluded her from the nation’s most prestigious courts. In 1946, after reaching the national finals of the American Tennis Association (ATA)—Black tennis’s alternative to the all-white United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA)—Gibson secured the mentorship of two ATA members who believed she could break the sport’s color barrier. Despite Gibson’s impressive record on the Black amateur tennis circuit, the USLTA banned her from competing until its 1950 championship, where she lost to reigning Wimbledon champion Louise Brough. Gibson rebounded by becoming the first Black player to win a Grand Slam title with her singles victory at the 1956 French Open. She cemented her place in sports history with consecutive singles championships at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open (1957; 1958) and six Grand Slam doubles titles. Gelatin silver print, 1988
9. IDREAM_230209_055.JPG: Mary Frances Berry born 1938 "When it comes to the cause of justice, I take no prisoners and I don’t believe in compromising." -- Mary Frances Berry Born Nashville, Tennessee Throughout her career, Mary Frances Berry has distinguished herself as an educator, public servant, civil rights advocate, human rights activist, and historian. As chancellor of the University of Colorado Boulder (1976–77), she was the first Black woman to lead a major research university. Berry entered public service in 1977 as assistant secretary of education at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Appointed by President Carter to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1980, she served until 2004. When President Reagan attempted to fire her, she sued successfully to retain her seat and was appointed twice (1993; 1999) as chairperson by President Clinton. Under Berry’s leadership, the commission initiated civil rights-related studies and produced reports and recommendations. As cofounder of the Free South Africa Movement (1984), she also actively opposed apartheid. A professor at the University of Pennsylvania since 1987, Berry has published widely and earned numerous honors. Gelatin silver print, 1988
10. IDREAM_230209_063.JPG: Katherine Dunham 1909–2006 "It was in me to dance, and I had to do it to be satisfied." -- Katherine Dunham Born Glen Ellyn, Illinois An innovative dancer, choreographer, and dance anthropologist, Katherine Dunham created a scintillating form of modern dance by blending rhythmic elements of Afro-Caribbean and South American dance with those of American jazz and classical ballet. Dunham’s signature technique and choreography owed much to the field study of dance culture and ritual in the Caribbean islands that she began in 1935, while working toward a degree in social anthropology. Dunham dazzled audiences in the late 1930s and early 1940s with concert dance programs such as Tropics and Le Jazz Hot. Success on Broadway in the groundbreaking, all-Black musical Cabin in the Sky (1940), followed by her work in Hollywood films, including Stormy Weather (1943), further propelled Dunham’s career. She built a worldwide following by touring extensively with her own dance company until the early 1960s and nurtured a new generation of performers through the multidisciplinary schools she opened at home and in Haiti. Gelatin silver print, 1988
11. IDREAM_230209_068.JPG: Septima Poinsette Clark 1898–1987 "I’ll tell children of the future that they have to stand up for their rights. They have an idea that they can. But I feel that they are shadows underneath a great shelter and that they need to come forth and stand up for some of the things that are right." -- Septima Poinsette Clark Born Charleston, South Carolina Educator and grassroots activist Septima Poinsette Clark spearheaded literacy and citizenship training programs that were vital to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. A teacher by training, Clark was part of a successful 1920 campaign in Charleston, South Carolina, to secure the right of African Americans to teach in the city’s public schools. In 1945, while teaching in Columbia, she worked with Thurgood Marshall and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to win pay equity for Black and white teachers. When South Carolina barred public employees from membership in civil rights organizations in 1956, Clark was fired from her Charleston teaching post after refusing to resign from the NAACP. Hired by the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, she led its citizenship workshops until the state closed the progressive education center in 1961. Clark continued her citizenship initiative through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and trained countless community leaders until her retirement in 1970. Gelatin silver print, 1987
12. IDREAM_230209_082.JPG: Cicely Tyson 1924–2021 "I did not set out to become a role model. I did set out to become the best possible actress I could be." -- Cicely Tyson Born New York City, New York Cicely Tyson flatly rejected roles that perpetuated negative images of African Americans. An actor of enormous depth and sensitivity, she chose “to portray Black women who have made positive contributions to my heritage.” Tyson turned to acting after a brief career in modeling. Following several small film and television roles, Tyson landed her first substantive part in The Blacks (1961), an Off–Broadway play that ran for 1,408 performances. A supporting film role in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968) increased Tyson’s visibility, but it was her Academy Award-nominated portrayal of the indomitable wife of a sharecropper in Sounder (1972) that ignited her career. In 1974, her Emmy-winning performance in the drama The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman marked another watershed moment. Tyson continued to work in film, television, and theater, capping her career with a Tony Award for her work in The Trip to Bountiful (2013) and an honorary Oscar (2018) Gelatin silver print, 1988
13. IDREAM_230209_089.JPG: Odetta 1930–2008 "Folk music straightened my back and it kinked my hair. What is an Afro or natural today used to be called an Odetta." -- Odetta Born Birmingham, Alabama Asked what songs she found most meaningful, Rosa Parks declared, “All of the songs Odetta sings”—a ringing endorsement of the immensely talented folk and blues singer who became known as the “voice of the civil rights movement.” Odetta discovered folk music in the early 1950s, just as the folk revival was gaining momentum. Moved by the ballads, work songs, blues, prison songs, and spirituals that vividly expressed the historic struggles of African Americans, Odetta made this music her own. Her soulful singing and distinctive guitar playing soon earned her critical and popular acclaim. The growth of the civil rights movement paralleled Odetta’s rising popularity. As her engagement with the movement deepened, her songs channeled her rage against injustice. “As I was singing, I was one of those things that was smoldering,” she later recalled. At the 1963 March on Washington, Odetta rallied the massive crowd with her powerful voice. Gelatin silver print, 1988
14. IDREAM_230209_098.JPG: Elizabeth Catlett 1915–2012 "Most women that have to fight for survival get a special strength sooner or later." -- Elizabeth Catlett Born Washington, D.C. Throughout her long career, artist Elizabeth Catlett remained true to the advice of an early mentor, painter Grant Wood of American Gothic fame. While she was pursuing an MFA at the University of Iowa in the late 1930s, he urged her to “paint what you know most about.” She later recalled, “I knew most about Black people—that was when I began to focus seriously on Black subject matter.” Catlett’s moving evocation of the Black experience would remain a central theme of her work. In 1946, Catlett settled in Mexico, where, as a member of the collaborative Taller de Gr�fica Popular (Popular Graphic Art Workshop), she honed her printmaking skills to “put art to the service of people.” Ultimately becoming director of sculpture at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, she remained committed to socially and politically conscious artmaking. After the U.S. government targeted Catlett for her leftist sympathies, she became a Mexican citizen in 1962. Gelatin silver print, 1988
15. IDREAM_230209_109.JPG: Angela Davis born 1944 "When Black women win victories, it is a boost for virtually every segment of this society." -- Angela Davis Born Birmingham, Alabama During the social and political upheavals of the 1960s, scholar, educator, and activist Angela Davis emerged as a polarizing figure—demonized by some and staunchly defended by others. Although she was a highly regarded intellectual, the 1969–70 academic year brought Davis’s controversial firing from the University of California, Los Angeles, due to her Communist Party membership. In 1970, Davis joined efforts to seek justice for the Soledad Brothers—three incarcerated Black Panther Party members indicted for the murder of a Soledad prison guard. Her alleged involvement in a subsequent shootout at a California courthouse led to her arrest and trial for murder, conspiracy, and kidnapping. Acquitted on all charges in 1972, Davis later became a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she now holds emerita status. Today, she works to abolish what she terms “the prison industrial complex” while also fighting racism and advocating for women’s right Gelatin silver print, 1988
16. IDREAM_230209_119.JPG: Sonia Sanchez born 1934 "I write to keep in contact with our ancestors and to spread truth to people. " -- Sonia Sanchez Born Birmingham, Alabama Poet, playwright, activist, and scholar Sonia Sanchez (born Wilsonia Benita Driver) first rose to national prominence in the mid-1960s as a key figure in the Black Arts Movement (1965–75), an initiative focused on affirming Black identity and cultural autonomy through artistic expression. In work described as “inherently revolutionary in its vision and in its experimentation with form,” Sanchez combined the language of the street with radical punctuation and unconventional spelling to evoke the urgency of the struggle for Black liberation. Since issuing her first poetry collections, Home Coming (1969) and We a BaddDDD People (1970), Sanchez has published a wide variety of works, including haiku poetry, plays, and children’s books. A groundbreaking scholar and educator, she is widely credited with cofounding one of the first Black studies courses at a predominantly white institution—California’s San Francisco State University—in the late 1960s. Gelatin silver print, 1988
17. IDREAM_230209_129.JPG: Ellen Stewart 1919–2011 "I used to work five and six jobs, running from one to the other because the more La MaMa grew, the more money was needed." -- Ellen Stewart Born Chicago, Illinois A transformational figure in Off-Off-Broadway theater, Ellen Stewart created an extraordinary incubator for emerging talent by founding Caf� La MaMa (now La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club or La MaMa E.T.C.) in 1961. Stewart was working as a freelance fashion designer in New York City when she became aware of the plight of aspiring playwrights who struggled to secure venues for their plays. She tackled this problem by establishing a small, non-commercial performance space—initially in an East Village basement—that became a vital launch pad for countless playwrights, actors, and directors. Described by the New York Times as “a multicultural hive of avant-garde drama and performance art,” La MaMa has nurtured the careers of Ping Chong, Robert De Niro, Andr� De Shields, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Bette Midler, and Sam Shepard, among others. Praised for “enlarging the dimensions of the theatrical experience,” Stewart received a 2006 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre. Gelatin silver print, 1988
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