3.12 Photography and Social Change
✊🏿AP African American Studies Unit 3 Review
3.12 Photography and Social Change
✊🏿 AP African American Studies
3.1
The Reconstruction Amendments
3.2
Social Life: Reuniting Black Families and the Freedmen's Bureau
3.3
Black Codes, Land, and Labor
3.4
The Defeat of Reconstruction
3.5
Disenfranchisement and Jim Crow Laws
3.6
White Supremacist Violence and the Red Summer
3.7
The Color Line and Double Consciousness in American Society
3.8
Lifting as We Climb: Uplift Ideologies and Black Women's Rights and Leadership
3.9
Black Organizations and Institutions
3.10
HBCUs, Black Greek Letter Organizations, and Black Education
3.11
The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance
3.12
Photography and Social Change
3.13
Envisioning Africa in Harlem Renaissance Poetry
3.14
Symphony in Black: Black Performance in Music, Theater, and Film
3.15
Black History Education and African American Studies
3.16
The Great Migration
3.17
Afro-Caribbean Migration
3.18
The Universal Negro Improvement Association
In the early twentieth century, African Americans used photography to fight back against racist images and show the dignity, beauty, and everyday reality of Black life. Photographers like James Van Der Zee captured Harlem's Black community with pride, helping reshape how the world saw African Americans during the New Negro movement.
The AP African American Studies exam often asks you to read visual sources, and this topic also gives you material for causation and continuity questions.
Photography Countered Racist Images of Black Life
- African American scholars, artists, and activists turned to photography to counter racist representations that justified Jim Crow segregation and mistreatment.
- During the New Negro movement, Black photographers built a distinctive Black aesthetic rooted in the beauty of everyday Black life, history, folk culture, and pride in African heritage.
- James Van Der Zee is best known for photographing Black Harlemites, especially the Black middle class, often using props and poses to capture personality and status.
- Van Der Zee documented Black expression, labor, leisure, study, worship, and home life, highlighting the liberated spirit, beauty, and dignity of Black people.
- Earlier, W.E.B. Du Bois curated the Exhibit of American Negroes at the 1900 Paris Exposition, which displayed more than 300 photographs along with charts and data, reaching a global audience.
How African Americans Used Photography for Social Change
Countering Racist Representations
Racist images of African Americans circulated widely through minstrel shows, caricatures, and stereotypes that portrayed Black people as inferior. These images were not just insulting. They were used to justify the mistreatment of Black people and to defend Jim Crow segregation.
Photography gave African American scholars, artists, and activists a way to push back. By creating their own images, they presented accurate, dignified portrayals of Black life and built a visual record that contradicted the lies told about them.
The New Negro Movement and a Black Aesthetic
During the New Negro movement, African American photographers worked to create a distinctive Black aesthetic. Instead of copying the degrading images in mainstream media, they grounded their work in:
- The beauty of everyday Black life
- Black history and folk culture
- Pride in an African heritage
Their photographs captured scenes of labor, leisure, study, worship, and home life. The goal was to affirm Black identity and instill pride and self-determination in Black communities.
James Van Der Zee
James Van Der Zee is the photographer named in this topic, and he is best known for his images of Black Harlemites, especially the Black middle class. He often used props, including luxury items, and carefully chosen poses to capture the personalities of both everyday people and well-known figures like Marcus Garvey and Mamie Smith.
His work illustrated the qualities associated with the "New Negro." By showing Black expression, beauty, and dignity, his photographs recast how people around the world saw African Americans and served as a counter-narrative to racist depictions.
W.E.B. Du Bois and the 1900 Paris Exposition
Before the height of the Harlem Renaissance, W.E.B. Du Bois curated the Exhibit of American Negroes at the 1900 Paris Exposition. It displayed more than 300 photographs of African Americans along with dozens of charts and infographics in English and French, grounded in demographic, scientific, and sociological research.
The exhibit demonstrated the diversity and achievements of African Americans and was seen by a large international audience, anticipating the ideas of the later New Negro movement and showing Black achievement to a global audience.
Required Sources
These four Van Der Zee photographs are the required sources for this topic. Practice reading them as arguments about Black identity, not just as old pictures.
"Miss Suzie Porter, Harlem," 1915
A portrait of an individual woman in early twentieth century Harlem. Pay attention to how the pose and styling present her with dignity and personality, the kind of respectful individual portrait that racist media rarely offered Black subjects.
"Garveyite Family, Harlem," 1924
This image connects to Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and its message of Black pride, self-reliance, and pan-African identity. It shows how movement ideals showed up in family life and self-presentation.
"Swimming Team, Harlem," 1925
A group portrait of Black athletes that captures leisure, community, and achievement in Harlem. It documents a side of Black life beyond the literary and artistic work usually associated with the Harlem Renaissance.
"Couple, Harlem," 1932
An intimate portrait of a couple during the Great Depression. The styling and poses present Black love and everyday life with care and dignity at a time of economic hardship and segregation.
Analyzing Van Der Zee Photographs as Arguments
Using Sources Effectively: When you get a photograph like one of Van Der Zee's, do not just describe what you see. Explain the choices and their purpose:
- Identify specific details: clothing, props, pose, setting, who is included.
- Connect those details to the photographer's purpose of showing dignity and pride.
- Explain how the image counters racist stereotypes of the time.
Making Connections: Tie photography to the larger New Negro movement. Photographers, writers, and artists were all working to define Black identity on their own terms during the New Negro movement, which grew out of the nadir. Photography was one method among several.
You can also connect Van Der Zee's Harlem images to the Great Migration, since many of his subjects were part of the Black community that grew in northern cities as people moved from the South.
Common Trap: Do not treat photographs as simple records of "what happened." On the exam, credit comes from analyzing why the image was made and what argument it makes, not just summarizing the scene.
Common Misconceptions
- Misconception: Photographs just show facts.Actually: These images were intentional. Van Der Zee used poses, props, and styling to send a message about dignity and status, so analyze the choices, not just the contents.
- Misconception: Black photography started with the Harlem Renaissance.Actually: African Americans were using visual media to challenge racist representations earlier too. Du Bois's photo exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition came before the height of the Harlem Renaissance.
- Misconception: Van Der Zee only photographed famous people.Actually: He is best known for everyday Black Harlemites, especially the Black middle class, alongside well-known figures like Marcus Garvey and Mamie Smith.
- Misconception: The New Negro aesthetic was about imitating mainstream media.Actually: It was the opposite. Photographers deliberately built a distinctive Black aesthetic rooted in everyday Black life, folk culture, and pride in African heritage.
Related AP African American Studies Guides
- 3.9 Black Organizations and Institutions
- 3.11 The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance
- 3.5 Disenfranchisement and Jim Crow Laws
- 3.8 Lifting as We Climb: Uplift Ideologies and Black Women's Rights and Leadership
- 3.13 Envisioning Africa in Harlem Renaissance Poetry
- 3.4 The Defeat of Reconstruction
Practice Questions for 3.12
1 of 10
The Chicago Defender's coverage of racial violence, including lynching and police brutality, reached Southern African American readers through mail subscriptions and informal networks. The newspaper's investigative journalism documented incidents that white Southern newspapers ignored or misrepresented. This significance can best be explained as
A.
Demonstrating that Southern African Americans had achieved sufficient protection from racial violence
B.
Proving that African American journalists prioritized entertainment over investigating racial violence
C.
Providing trustworthy documentation of racial violence and counter-narratives to white supremacist accounts
D.
Showing that Southern African Americans preferred white-owned newspapers for accurate information
Vocabulary
The following words are mentioned explicitly in the AP® course framework for this topic.Term | Definition |
|---|---|
African heritage | The cultural, historical, and ancestral connections to Africa and African traditions maintained by African Americans. |
Black aesthetic | A distinctive artistic and cultural style created by African American artists that celebrated Black beauty, culture, and identity. |
Black expression | Cultural, artistic, political, and social forms of communication and creativity produced by Black people. |
folk culture | The traditional customs, beliefs, stories, and artistic practices of African American communities passed down through generations. |
Jim Crow segregation | The system of racial segregation and discrimination laws that enforced the separation of African Americans from white Americans in the United States. |
New Negro movement | An early 20th-century cultural and intellectual movement of African American writers, artists, and educators who challenged racist stereotypes and promoted Black history, culture, and self-determination. |
racist representations | Dehumanizing or demeaning depictions of African Americans used to justify discrimination and mistreatment. |
social change | Transformation in social structures, attitudes, and systems aimed at achieving greater equality and justice. |
visual media | Forms of communication and expression that primarily use images, photographs, and visual elements to convey messages and meaning. |
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