[African-American Art][Harlem Renaissance] Harmon Foundation Exhibition of the Work of Negro Artists, 1931, a pivotal institutional public recognition of Black visual art during the Harlem Renaissance. Issued for the February 16–28, 1931 exhibition at the Art Center in New York, the catalog represents the final year of the Harmon Foundation’s.....
[African American Film] Hall Johnson and Black Hollywood production photo archive documenting two Black-cast productions and Black portraiture under Jim Crow Hollywood, circa 1936 to 1940s, including a portrait of composer and choral director Hall Johnson and a studio backlot photograph identifying the Marc Connelly Production Company. During American segregation.....
African American nightlife photographs documenting formal social life near West Walnut Street in Louisville, Kentucky, circa 1940s to early 1950s, with direct evidence of how Black leisure, commercial entertainment, and urban community life functioned within a segregated downtown district. Stamped by Wilson Foto at 818 Walnut Street, the group places.....
Original final studio script for The Great White Hope (September 26, 1969). Adapted from Howard Sackler’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play, the film dramatizes the career of heavyweight champion Jack Johnson through the fictional Jack Jefferson, portrayed by James Earl Jones. The production candidly explored the white supremacist backlash against Black athletic.....
Hughes, Langston. event ephemera, circa 1930s to 1950s, documents the public literary, musical, and educational activities of one of the central figures of twentieth century African American literature and provides direct evidence of his role as a lecturer, performer, and cultural organizer beyond the printed page. These materials record Hughes’s.....
[Photography] [African American] Black photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris captures a vernacular photograph at a lunch counter within Pittsburgh’s Hill District—an epicenter of Black cultural and civic life in the mid-20th century. Circa 1949. Black and white silver gelatin print measuring 10" x 8". This warm and candid image shows a......
Foxx, Redd. Annotated typescript, owned and marked by Redd Foxx (1922–1991), one of the most influential Black comedians of the twentieth century. Foxx, who emerged from the Chitlin’ Circuit nightclub tradition before achieving national fame in the sitcom Sanford and Son, helped carry African American vernacular humor into mainstream American.....
Archive of three black and white silver gelatin photographs of black models dating from the 1950s-70s. Photographs measure approx. 8" x 10". This archive includes a press photo from 1974, showing model Beverly Bradshaw posed in front of a museum display of elephants wearing a traditional Nigerian Ibo wrapped dress.....
United Artists and associated studios. Dorothy Dandridge photographs, 1951 to 1958, document the career of a Black actress whose roles and public visibility marked a shift in American film representation during the mid-twentieth century. Dandridge’s performances, including her role in Carmen Jones, positioned her within leading roles at a time.....
Waters, Ethel, group of six items dating from 1934 to 1959, documents the stage and screen career of Ethel Waters, a central figure in twentieth century African American performance history whose work in theater, music, and film intersected with the integration of American entertainment industries. Rising to prominence in Harlem.....
Sirk, Douglas (director). Imitation of Life, 1959, examines racial passing, colorism, and Black domestic labor within mid-twentieth-century American society, placing these themes within a melodramatic narrative released during the early Civil Rights era. The film centers on the relationship between a Black mother and her light-skinned daughter who passes as.....
United Artists and associated studios. Dorothy Dandridge photographs, 1951 to 1958, document the career of a Black actress whose roles and public visibility marked a shift in American film representation during the mid-twentieth century. Dandridge’s performances, including her role in Carmen Jones, positioned her within leading roles at a time.....
Columbia Pictures, The Harlem Globetrotters, 1951, documents the intersection of African American athletic culture and mid-century film production, featuring Dorothy Dandridge in one of her early screen roles alongside members of the Harlem Globetrotters. The film frames Black athletes in a narrative of social mobility and personal struggle, contributing to.....
Kramer, Stanley (director). The Defiant Ones, 1958, situates Sidney Poitier within a pivotal Civil Rights-era narrative that foregrounds interracial cooperation under coercive conditions, advancing one of the earliest Hollywood treatments of racial prejudice and mutual dependence between Black and white protagonists. The film follows two escaped prisoners, one Black and.....
United Artists Corporation. In the Heat of the Night and They Call Me Mister Tibbs promotional materials, 1967 and 1970, document a shift in American film toward central Black protagonists in roles of authority during the Civil Rights era. Sidney Poitier’s portrayal of Virgil Tibbs, a Black detective operating within.....
Kramer, Stanley (director). Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967, addresses interracial marriage in the immediate aftermath of Loving v. Virginia, situating its narrative within a moment when anti-miscegenation laws had only just been struck down across the United States. The film centers on the relationship between John Prentice, portrayed by.....
Columbia Pictures Corporation, To Sir, With Love, 1967, documents the emergence of Sidney Poitier as a central figure in global Black cinema and the articulation of race, authority, and education within a transatlantic context during the Civil Rights era. The film places a Black teacher in a working-class London classroom.....
Preminger, Otto (director). Carmen Jones promotional photograph and lobby card archive, 1954, documenting African American representation in mid-twentieth-century American cinema through studio-produced visual media. These materials situate the film within Hollywood’s evolving portrayal of Black performers, presenting an all-Black cast in a major studio production and contributing to the visibility.....
Heyward, DuBose and Dorothy. Porgy: A Play in Four Acts, 1927, presenting the first theatrical adaptation of DuBose Heyward’s novel centered on Black life in Charleston, South Carolina, with particular relevance to representations of African American communities, language, and urban experience in early twentieth-century American literature and theater. The play.....
[African American] [Fashion & Beauty] Miss Black America beauty pageant contestants and winners photo archive dating from the 1968-1981. Black women combated racial discrimination by creating their own space to celebrate Black beauty in an all-Black pageant. Starting in 1970, Miss Black America was originally a local Philadelphia area contest.....
Columbia Pictures Corporation, To Sir, With Love, 1967, documents the international emergence of Sidney Poitier as a defining figure in African American film history, presenting a Black educator navigating race, class, and authority within a working-class London school. The film situates Poitier’s character within an interracial classroom, addressing discipline, respect.....
Anonymous photographs of Harry Belafonte, produced 1957–1964, document the intersection of African American performance, film, and civil rights visibility during a period of expanding Black representation in American media. Belafonte, a Harlem-born singer, actor, and activist, gained national prominence through the popularization of Caribbean folk music and calypso in mainstream.....
Photo archive of African American fashion models and a regional beauty pageant winner, 1960s–1970s, documents Black women’s participation in commercial modeling and organized pageantry during a period of changing representation in American media. The images center on professional studio photography and promotional portraiture, recording how Black women were presented within.....
Unknown photographers, group of film and television press photographs, circa 1950s–1990s, documenting African American actors and performers across multiple decades of American cinema and broadcast media. The material operates in Cultural/Representational Mode, illustrating the evolution of Black screen representation through commercial film, television, and experimental media, with relevance to African.....
United Artists. Cotton Comes to Harlem promotional stills, 1970, document one of the earliest films associated with the emergence of the blaxploitation genre and the expansion of Black-directed and Black-centered narratives in American cinema. Directed by Ossie Davis and based on Chester Himes’ novel, the film situates its story within.....
