There is validity in writer Te-Nehisi Coates' observation that the story of the American civil war thus far has largely been a story for white people in which blacks have been passive recipients of the benevolence of their white saviors.
According to Maurice Berger, the tradition of a one-sided story-telling continues in Steven Spielberg's new film Lincoln, which gives a nuanced portrayal of Lincoln but is "almost devoid of images of active black resistance and protest and overall participation in their own cause."
But slaves were crucial agents in their own emancipation, especially through a prolific use of the power of photography, or, as it was known at that time, daguerreography.
Envisioning Emancipation, a book co-authored by Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer, explores how black abolitionists (emancipated slaves who championed freedom for their fellow slaves) like Sojourner Truth and Fredrick Douglass, used the medium of photography to fight the intricate battle of changing minds and hearts in favor of emancipation.
A fascinating trivia about Sojourner Truth: She may have been the first black woman to actively distribute photographs of herself. But her self-publicity wasn't of a blatantly narcissistic kind as her portraits were meant to affirm her status as "a sophisticated and respectable free woman and as a woman in control of her own image."
Truth had a supreme critical perspective on the role of image; while she sold her own photographs to raise money for the cause, she said, "I sell the shadow to support the substance."
(Wow!)
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