Natural Women

The images in this book of postcards first appeared in the exhibition American Negroes, curated by W. E. B. DuBois for the 1900 Paris Exposition. DuBois's intent was to demonstrate the astonishing upward mobility of African America in the single generation that had passed since the end of slavery. Among the images he assembled - of black businesses, schools, churches, and social groups - were photographic portraits whose clear-eyed, middle-class men and women quietly gave the lie to the racist lampoons then popular among white newspapers and entertainers. Thirty of those photographs appear here. Their subjects - unidentified women clad in starchy shirtwaists and with natural, unprocessed hair - are clearly as proud of their African blood as they are of their hard-won successes. They are enduring witnesses to the strength of a people who will not be oppressed.