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

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

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Description of Pictures: I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker’s Portraits of Remarkable Black Women: Part I
July 8, 2022 – January 29, 2023
This exhibition features more than 25 photographs by Brian Lanker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who, in 1989, published the extraordinarily popular book I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America. The show represents women who have made significant contributions to the United States, whether through writing, activism, theater, athletics, journalism, or other disciplines. Sitters featured in the first part include Maya Angelou, Septima Poinsette Clark, Lena Horne, Barbara Jordan, Rosa Parks, Leontyne Price, Wilma Rudolph, and Alice Walker. Sitters featured in the second part include Althea Gibson, Odetta, Cicely Tyson, and Oprah Winfrey. The second part will be on display from Feb. 10, 2022, through Aug. 27, 2023.
I Dream a World is co-curated by Ann Shumard, senior curator of photographs, and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw.

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[1] IDREAM_221014_01.JPG	[2] IDREAM_221014_05.JPG	[3] IDREAM_221014_09.JPG
[4] IDREAM_221014_16.JPG	[5] IDREAM_221014_20.JPG	[6] IDREAM_221014_28.JPG
[7] IDREAM_221014_32.JPG	[8] IDREAM_221014_36.JPG	[9] IDREAM_221014_42.JPG
[10] IDREAM_221014_49.JPG	[11] IDREAM_221014_54.JPG	[12] IDREAM_221014_61.JPG
[13] IDREAM_221014_66.JPG	[14] IDREAM_221014_75.JPG	[15] IDREAM_221014_79.JPG
[16] IDREAM_221014_83.JPG	[17] IDREAM_221014_89.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. IDREAM_221014_05.JPG: I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker’s Portraits of Remarkable Black Women: Part I:
2. IDREAM_221014_09.JPG: Wilma Rudolph, 1940-1994 Born Clarksville, Tennessee “I would be very disappointed if I were only remembered as a runner because I feel that my contribution to the youth of America has far exceeded the woman who was the Olympic champion. The challenge is still there.” — Wilma Rudolph Eleven seconds flat. That is all the time it took for Wilma Rudolph to streak to victory in the 100-meter sprint and claim Olympic gold at the 1960 Summer Games in Rome. The twenty-year-old sprinter, known as “Skeeter,” had overcome tremendous odds to reach the pinnacle in her sport. As a child, Rudolph endured a series of illnesses that left her with a partially paralyzed leg. After a brace, an orthopedic shoe, and years of therapy, she not only regained full use of her leg but emerged as a lightning-fast runner. With her stellar performances in the 100- and 200-meter sprints and the 400-meter relay in Rome, Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field events in a single Olympics. When she later refused to participate in a segregated victory celebration in Clarksville, Tennessee, the festivity became that town’s first integrated function. 1987
3. IDREAM_221014_16.JPG: Rosa Parks, 1913-2005 Born Tuskegee, Alabama “When people made up their minds that they wanted to be free and took action, then there was a change. But they couldn’t rest on that change. It has to continue.” — Rosa Parks When the moment came on a municipal bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, Rosa Parks was prepared. The seamstress, an active member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, had immersed herself in the principles of nonviolent civil disobedience at Tennessee’s Highlander Folk School the previous summer. When she refused to yield her seat to a white male passenger, she did so not because she was tired but because of her determination to stand her ground in the face of race-based oppression. Parks’s arrest for violating segregation laws sparked the 382-day bus boycott (spearheaded by Martin Luther King Jr.) that culminated in the Supreme Court ruling bus segregation unconstitutional. Her emergence as a civil rights icon came at the cost of her job, and, in the face of continued death threats, she left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957. For the rest of her life, Parks worked tirelessly for equality. 1988
4. IDREAM_221014_20.JPG: Coretta Scott King, 1927-2006 Born Marion, Alabama “It was a good feeling to know that my life had purpose and meaning. After our home in Montgomery was bombed, I had to recommit myself and my life. I realized then that I could be killed and that it was important to make [the civil rights movement] my struggle also.” — Coretta Scott King Coretta Scott King embraced the campaigns of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr., for civil rights and social justice, and, following his assassination in 1968, she worked to sustain his initiatives and ensure his legacy. She narrowly escaped injury or death in 1956, when the couple’s home was bombed during the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1968, after her husband was murdered while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, she courageously led a march through that city. With her support, his Poor People’s Campaign moved forward. After founding the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (1968), Coretta Scott King worked tirelessly to secure a federal holiday honoring her husband. She also spoke out against the war in Vietnam and South African apartheid, while supporting women’s equality. Later, when many in the civil rights community were wary of the gay rights movement, she connected it to the cause of racial justice. 1988
5. IDREAM_221014_28.JPG: Constance Baker Motley, 1921-2005 Born New Haven, Connecticut “Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade.” — Constance Baker Motley In a career dedicated to the pursuit of equal justice, Constance Baker Motley broke barriers as a civil rights attorney and federal judge. A Columbia Law School graduate (1946), Motley built her career with the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, advancing from assistant counsel (1950) to associate counsel (1961). She prepared briefs for the landmark school desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and represented the NAACP in subsequent litigation that successfully dismantled many segregation laws of the Jim Crow era. Winning nine of the ten civil rights cases she argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Motley achieved a significant victory by securing James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi (1962). When President Lyndon Johnson successfully nominated her to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1966, Motley became the first Black woman federal judge. 1988
6. IDREAM_221014_32.JPG: Barbara Jordan, 1936-1996 Born Houston, Texas “There seems to be a chilling of opportunity rather than an enlivening and enhancing of opportunity. But to me, that should just be the spark that energizes you to get out there and do things.” — Barbara Jordan When voters in Texas’s Eighteenth District elected Barbara Jordan to Congress in 1972, she became the first Black congresswoman from the Deep South. With her serious demeanor and magisterial voice, Jordan stood out among first-term colleagues and long-serving members alike. She distinguished herself as a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate scandal and made an eloquent case for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. After three terms in Congress (1973–79), she retired to teach political ethics at the University of Texas at Austin. Jordan remained a strong advocate for justice. While serving as chair of the Commission on Immigration Reform in 1995, she denounced a proposal to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to undocumented parents. Doing so, she declared, “would derail this engine of American liberty.” Jordan’s powerful voice was stilled just a year later, when she died at the age of fifty-nine. 1988
7. IDREAM_221014_36.JPG: Maya Angelou, 1928-2014 Born St. Louis, Missouri “Humility says there were people before me who found the path. I’m a road builder. For those who are yet to come, I seem to be finding the path and they will be road builders. That keeps one humble. Love keeps one humble.” — Maya Angelou Maya Angelou created an indelible record of resistance and resilience in her seven-volume series of autobiographical novels, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). Yet her path to literary success was circuitous. Although classic literature provided a refuge for her during a childhood marked by the sting of racism, economic hardship, and sexual abuse, she pursued other interests before devoting her energies to writing. Committed to the cause of civil rights, she became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1960, shortly after moving to New York City. Later that decade, the assassinations of Malcolm X (1965) and Martin Luther King Jr. (1968) profoundly affected her. Angelou began writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings with the encouragement of mentor James Baldwin. The runaway success of the book marked the beginning of her celebrated career, which grew to include popular poetry. Angelou was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. 1988
8. IDREAM_221014_42.JPG: Sarah Vaughan, 1924-1990 Born Newark, New Jersey “Practice? When I’m on stage, that’s it. When I want to learn a new song, we have rehearsals, but that’s it. It’s different every time.” — Sarah Vaughan A consummate vocal artist, Sarah Vaughan moved effortlessly between the worlds of jazz and pop music. Following her debut with Earl Hines’s orchestra in 1943, she joined Billy Eckstine’s groundbreaking band, where she was profoundly influenced by its stellar roster of jazz and bop innovators, including Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Vaughan then worked briefly with John Kirby’s ensemble before launching her highly successful solo career in 1946. The supple contralto and remarkable range showcased on her first hit, “Tenderly” (1947), won her legions of fans. Peers such as Ella Fitzgerald deemed Vaughan the world’s “greatest singing talent,” and the readers of DownBeat magazine voted her the best female singer for six consecutive years (1947–52). Described by New York Times music critic John S. Wilson as having “what may well be the finest voice ever applied to jazz,” Vaughan’s interpretations of popular music, from the Beatles to Stephen Sondheim, also sparkled. 1988
9. IDREAM_221014_49.JPG: Alice Walker, born 1944 Born Eatonton, Georgia “I love this land. I’m not crazy about the nation.” — Alice Walker When her third novel, The Color Purple, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983, Alice Walker became the first African American woman to receive this honor. A bestseller that also captured a National Book Award, The Color Purple was adapted by Steven Spielberg as a feature film (1985) and later transformed into a Broadway musical (2005 and 2015). The struggle and survival of strong Black women animates Walker’s work, reflecting the “womanist” perspective that she articulated. Early in her career, Walker drew inspiration from the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, whose powerful voice and perspective as a Southern Black woman had been long overlooked. Walker brought Hurston back into the public eye by publishing an acclaimed anthology of her work in 1979. More recently, Walker’s legacy has been complicated by her praise for a prominent Holocaust denier and by her poem “To Study the Talmud,” which many regard as antisemitic. 1988
10. IDREAM_221014_54.JPG: Leah Chase, 1923-2019 Born New Orleans, Louisiana “If you’re in a hurry, just eat your sandwich and go. Don’t even start cooking, because you can’t do anything well in a hurry. I love food. I love serving people. I love satisfying people.” — Leah Chase The undisputed “Queen of Creole Cuisine,” Leah Chase was a restaurateur and world-renowned chef who championed civil rights. After working as a server in “whites only” venues in New Orleans’s French Quarter, she married jazz musician Edgar “Dooky” Chase Jr. in 1946 and joined his family’s restaurant business in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Treme. Under her influence, Dooky Chase’s Restaurant evolved from a corner sandwich shop into a formal dining establishment, where African Americans could experience the superb regional cuisine and attentive service that the city’s upscale white restaurants had refused to offer them. Defying segregation laws, Leah Chase seated both Black and white customers at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, making it one of the few places in Jim Crow-era New Orleans where civil rights activists of all races could gather publicly to strategize. “In my dining room, we changed the course of America over a bowl of gumbo and some fried chicken,” Chase recalled. 1988
11. IDREAM_221014_61.JPG: Lena Horne, 1917-2010 Born Brooklyn, New York “Don’t be afraid to feel as angry or as loving as you can, because when you feel nothing, it’s just death.” — Lena Horne Singer and actress Lena Horne challenged racial barriers to emerge as one of the most popular entertainers of her generation. After her debut as a dancer at Harlem’s Cotton Club, she found work as a Big Band vocalist. Her subsequent success as a nightclub singer led to a Hollywood audition, and she became the first African American to secure a long-term contract with a major motion picture studio when she signed with MGM in 1942. After starring in the all-Black musicals Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather, Horne found her screen opportunities limited when she refused to accept stereotypical roles. Blacklisted during the McCarthy era, she rebuilt her career and was active in the civil rights movement. She performed at the 1963 March on Washington and other civil rights rallies, adding protest songs to her repertoire. Horne’s crowning professional achievement came in 1981, when her critically acclaimed one-woman show earned a special Tony Award. 1988
12. IDREAM_221014_66.JPG: Septima Poinsette Clark, 1898-1987 Born Charleston, South Carolina “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 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. 1987
13. IDREAM_221014_75.JPG: Shirley Chisholm, 1924-2005 Born Brooklyn, New York “But in spite of it all, I went to the Democratic convention in 1972 and did my thing and began to open the way for women to think that they can run [for president].” — Shirley Chisholm Shirley Chisholm’s fierce independence was underscored by the tagline “Unbought and Unbossed,” which she adopted for her 1972 presidential campaign. Chisholm began her career in early childhood education in New York City but turned to public service full-time with her election to the state’s General Assembly (1964–68). When she won New York’s Twelfth District seat in 1968, she became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. During her seven terms (1969–83), Chisholm emerged as an outspoken advocate for civil rights and a strong opponent of the Vietnam War. A co-founder of the National Organization for Women, she also was an ardent supporter of women’s issues. In 1972, Chisholm sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. Her bid was unsuccessful, but her pathbreaking candidacy raised issues of importance to African Americans and women. “The door is not open yet,” she said, “but it is ajar.” 1988
14. IDREAM_221014_79.JPG: Loentyne Price, born 1927 Born Laurel, Mississippi “Art is the only thing you cannot punch a button for. You must do it the old-fashioned way. Stay up and really burn the midnight oil. There are no compromises. Accomplishments have no color.” — Leontyne Price With a voice that routinely brought audiences to their feet, soprano Leontyne Price was the first African American opera singer to achieve stardom at home and abroad. Following vocal studies at Juilliard, she earned glowing reviews in 1952 for her performance as Bess in a popular revival of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Subsequently, she appeared in NBC’s 1955 production of Tosca, becoming the first Black singer to star in an opera telecast. Her career steadily gained momentum with acclaimed performances in opera venues from San Francisco to Milan. In 1961, when Price made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore, she received a thunderous, forty-two-minute ovation. Celebrated for her roles in Cleopatra and Aida, Price remained among the Met’s brightest stars until her retirement in 1985. In addition to having earned a reputation as one of the opera world’s most admired performers, she has also won several Grammys for her recordings. 1988
15. IDREAM_221014_83.JPG: Beah Richards, 1920-2000 Born Vicksburg, Mississippi “There are a lot of movies out there that I would hate to be paid to do, some real demeaning, real woman-denigrating stuff. It is up to women to change their roles. They are going to have to write the stuff and do it. And they will.” — Beah Richards Emmy Award winner and Academy Award nominee Beah Richards built a decades-long career by bringing a resonant dignity to the characters she portrayed. Growing up in segregated Vicksburg, Mississippi, she credited her parents with instilling in her a deep sense of Black pride that sustained her throughout her life. After launching her stage career, Richards secured her first significant part in the Off-Broadway play Take a Giant Step (1956). Her Broadway debut came with a role in The Miracle Worker (1959), which she reprised in the film (1962). In 1965, she earned a Tony nomination for her work in James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner. Richards’s sensitive performance in the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner brought her wide recognition and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. A poet and a playwright, Richards also won praise for her one-woman show A Black Woman Speaks. Her final film role came in Beloved (1998). 1987
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