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The Black Body Analysis

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The black body is the embodiment of protest and resistance. The daily reality of black bodies is a sociopolitical act, defying the social pathologies inflicted upon it by dominant ideologies. Specifically, through movement, self-expression, exertions of blackness, and its ability to endure. Therefore, when the black body emerges through visuals, it is in this moment that it enters a realm of performative defiance; particularly due to the power of the visual to capture a time-space that places the viewer in a historical moment indicative of a specific black experience. Indeed, these occurrences transport the observer to various periods that present a trajectory of blackness from the sadism of slavery to the collective exultance of having a …show more content…

To capture what rural poverty looked like, the FSA hired a group of photographers to travel the country taking what would become some of the most haunting and raw images of rural America. Contrastingly, Edwin Roskum and Russell Lee, two of the photographers on the project, also believed it was necessary to depict where poor people moved to escape poverty. This revelation led both to Chicago, focusing on the migratory patterns of southern blacks who relocated north during the Great Migration, particularly the Black Metropolis of the Midwest, also known as Bronzeville on the South Side of the city. It was here, in 1941, that Russell Lee captured what would become the most iconic image of Bronzeville; Negro boys on Easter morning (Gunderson). At first glance, Negro boys on Easter morning does not mimic what is known as the prototypical black protest photo. There are no blatant examples of blackness; afros, fists in the air or red, black and green attire. Further lacking are any signs listing demands, a large group of black bodies walking in unison or black people being attacked by police or dogs. Instead, what the viewer engages with, at the surface level, is an image of a group of black boys sitting on a car in their Sunday’s best. However, closer analysis reveals the

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