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Enslavements and Emancipations examines how the abuses of com- Make Good
mercial slavery triggered rebellion, escape, and Abolitionist movements.
In collaboration with MASP and the National Gallery of Art in the Promises:
Washington, D.C., the MFAH will present Afro-Atlantic Histories at Reconstruction
its Caroline Wiess Law Building now through Sunday, January 17, and its
2022. The exhibition will then travel to the National Gallery of Art to
be on view in its West Building from Sunday, April 10 through Legacies at
Sunday, July 17, 2022, with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art NMAAHC
and additional venues confirmed to follow.
The National
W Museum of African
Cincinnati Art American History and
Culture is offering
Museum among its Current

Working Special Exhibits Make Good the Promises: Reconstruction and its Legacies.
This exhibit focuses on the story of Reconstruction—the period
Together: The following the Civil War—through an African American lens.
Photographers The United States emerged from the Civil War fundamentally
of the Kamoinge changed. For the first time, slavery did not legally exist within its
borders. What this meant was the question before the nation. Would
Workshop four million newly freed people be truly free to determine their own
through May 15 lives? Would the nation’s founding promises of liberty, equality, and
justice be realized for all people, regardless of race?
Beuford Smith (American, born 1941), Two The Cincinnati Art These were the questions of Reconstruction. They remain the
Bass Hit, Lower East Side, 1972 Museum will present the first challenges of today.
major museum exhibition Reconstruction was a revolutionary political, social, and economic
about the groundbreaking African American photographers’ collective movement that reshaped the nation in profound and lasting ways. It
in a special exhibition titled Working Together: The Photographers of the manifested the aspirations and determinations of African Americans,
Kamoinge Workshop on view through May 15, 2022. including four million newly freed people, seeking to define themselves
This exhibition chronicles the formative years of the Kamoinge as free and equal citizens.
Workshop, a collective of Black photographers founded in New Reconstruction is an important but often overlooked time in
York in 1963. The group drew their name from the Gikuyu American history. As a result, many Americans do not know much
language of the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Meaning “a group of people about what happened in the years following the Civil War. While the
acting or working together,” the word kamoinge captures a central traditionally defined time frame for Reconstruction is 1865 to 1877, in
commitment to community, collective action, self-representation, and this section we take a broader view to see how struggles over citizenship
a global outlook. and national identity developed before, during, and beyond
Working Together features more than 150 photographs by fourteen Reconstruction. The Museum provides an overview of the major events
of the group’s early members, as well as the photographer Roy of Reconstruction, and reflect on why it matters today.
DeCarava – a formative influence and a key mentor in the Workshop’s After the end of slavery, newly freed African Americans embraced
first years. freedom by establishing families, creating communities, and building
The photographs on view date primarily from the 1960s and 70s, a new institutions. They sought access to education and ownership of
time of social upheaval and change, and cultural shifts of local and land as keys to independence.
global scale. In these years the collective’s members met weekly to share Above all, they wanted the opportunity to determine their own lives,
and discuss their photographs, encourage a mutual pursuit of artistic free from white interference. To secure their visions of freedom, they
innovation and excellence, and organize engagements with the demanded the same privileges and protections enjoyed by white citizens,
community including youth mentorship and the creation of exhibition including the right to vote.
spaces and publication platforms for Black photographers. The During Reconstruction, African Americans gained new civil and
exhibition includes an overview of many of the collective’s achievements political rights, including the right to vote and hold elected office. But
during this time, including rare documentation of exhibitions, portfolios, after 1873, the federal government retreated from enforcing civil rights
and publications. laws. White supremacists used voter suppression and terrorism to
In sections exploring Kamoinge photographers’ individual and group regain political power in southern states. In place of democracy, African
responses to themes of community, collective action, rights struggles and Americans faced a system of racial discrimination that confined them to
social change, the African diaspora, jazz, and photographic abstraction, second-class citizenship.
this presentation focuses on the work of Anthony Barboza, Adger Other Current Special Exhibits include:
Cowans, Danny Dawson, Louis Draper, Al Fennar, Ray Francis,
Herman Howard, Jimmie Mannas Jr., Herb Randall, Herb Robinson, Millie Christine
Beuford Smith, Ming Smith, Shawn Walker, and Calvin Wilson. Nine Millie Christine: The Life and Legal Battles of the Carolina Twins
of these artists—three of whom have close ties to Ohio—are still living explores the lives of enslaved conjoined twins who were considered
and working now. physical oddities and exhibited as circus and side show attractions
Working Together presents a powerful artistic statement from the throughout the United States and Europe beginning in the pre-Civil
two decades at the heart of the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements War era. The exhibit examines the complexities of freedom, profit, and
and forms an overdue tribute to the layered and remarkable work of family connection for the McCoy twins through the Freedmen’s
this landmark collective. Bureau and its records.
Working Together is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
(VMFA). It will conclude its run at the J. Paul Getty Museum from July Pauli Murray’s Proud Shoes
19–October 9, 2022. Pauli Murray’s Proud Shoes: A Classic in African American Genealogy
The Cincinnati Art Museum is supported by the generosity of individuals explores the family history of Pauli Murray, a pioneering lawyer, priest,
and businesses that give annually to ArtsWave. The Ohio Arts Council and writer. Her book, Proud Shoes: An African American Family,
helps fund the Cincinnati Art Museum with state tax dollars to encourage showcases the racial and social dynamics between the union of a free
economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all black family from the north and a mixed-race family of the south.
Ohioans. For more information, visit www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org For more information, visit www.nmaahc.si.edu

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