So critical to point out the history of photography as it was established a vital and fundamental tool of equal rights promotion by the master of it, Fredrick Douglass. I learned that the he took to the new mediaum of photography and intuitively understood the profundity impact he could d, and did, make by his photographs. Every one of them was carefully posed where he started straight into the camera, unafraid, looking directly, impeccably dressed as an white businessman, a “man of letters,” or politician was expected to be, and dignified, but without being haughty or proud. It was profound to revisit it after learning of this and see how he was indeed probably the “master of PR” in the whole of 1800s by his deliberate construction and manipulation of image. It is impossible today not to stare at all his photos and not see the deep humanity of the person.
That expression and poise eliminated differences and established a type of equality that the view is meant to feel. He knew what he was doing and happened to be right genius for this new medium. At the end of the 1800s in the South you can see this method reflected in the photos for women who dressed and poised in dignity to continue to destroy the myth of “poor” “ignorant” negroes, along with all negative associated pejoratives that came to be associated and repeated constantly by bad word of white mouth. We also can it in the purposefully and professionally staged photo of NCAAP investigator and field operative Rosa Parks and her colleague who staged the photo of her on the bus and her arrest. Those photos were anticipated and set up before hand a strategy, not an accident of some photojournalist just happening to be there. This was strategy and very effective at that in also changing mindsets, especially to Northerns ignorant of the depth of depravity and lack of democracy in the South.

Thanks again for raising this market.