Body conscious

New Crisis, The, May/Jun 2002 by Valentine, Victoria

The Black Female Body: A Photographic History

By Deborah Willis and Carla Williams

(Temple University Press, $60)

"I love myself when I am laughing. And then again when I am looking mean and impressive," Zora Neale Hurston wrote in a 1934 letter to Carl Van Vechten about a series of photographs he had taken of her. But photographic images of Black women, their bodies in particular, have not always been so empowering. When authors Deborah Willis and Carla Williams began research for their coffeetable book, The Black Female Body: A Photographic History, they "soon discovered that the history of our image is deeply rooted in representations of our mostly unclothed bodies.

Nineteenth century photographs of Black women are scarce. Those that do exist were taken by European and American photographers portraying African women as naked "savages" for "anthropological" study. From these early images, to those of Black women as servants, dignified portraits and pictures taken by Black female photographers since the mid-- 1970s, the authors introduce more than 200 photographs and likely the most comprehensive historical and socio-cultural analysis ever offered of such images. The volume includes the work of James VanDerZee, Van Vechten and many unknown photographers.

Reflecting evolving attitudes toward race, gender and sexuality, these mostly black and white photographs depict Black women in their life uniforms and disrobed, proudly pregnant, juxtaposed with white women, reclining nude, laboring in cotton fields. Among the images of mostly "regular" women of their time are Sojourner Truth, Josephine Baker, Pearl Bailey and Hurston, all of them looking mean and impressive, feminine and strong.