African Americans and the Photographic Seat of Honor
In the simplest of terms, this nation’s history of memorializing Black figures consists of two phases: before photography arrived in the United States and ever since. From the introduction of the daguerreotype in 1839 up through the twentieth century, Black and non-Blacks used photography to signify, cement, and remember the importance of certain Black figures. Examples include Harriet Tubman, Dred Scott, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Huey Newton, and Barack Obama. Studio portraits and photojournalistic images of these Black activists and political figures are among the most celebrated images of Black Americanness from the 19th and 20th centuries. Scholars have commented on the cultural and political significance of most, if not all, of these images as important representational events.

This paper considers the significance of a commonality visible across the lot: sitting. All Black figures listed above are seated in one or more of the photographic images that we, in the U.S., rely upon most to learn about and venerate them. Why African Americans sit in these images is a question that can be – and has been – answered through contextualization. The concern here is how these iconic photographs – representative of Black people, the Black past, and Black protest – function in the aggregate as an archive of Black iconicity, the central motif of which is the seated Black subject.
Date: 27 May 2025, 16:00
Venue: Rothermere American Institute, 1A South Parks Road OX1 3UB
Venue Details: Seminar Room
Speaker: Brenna Greer (Wellesley College)
Organising department: Rothermere American Institute
Organiser: Justine Shepperson (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: events@rai.ox.ac.uk
Host: Daniel Rowe (Oxford)
Booking required?: Not required
Cost: Free
Audience: Public
Editor: Joshua Alexander