Generations in Black and White: From the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection

This portfolio of 83 photographs constitutes a celebration of African American achievement in the 20th century. Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964), a long-time patron of black writers and artists, took these photographs over the course of three decades – primarily as gifts to his subjects, including: W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday, Joe Louis, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Ruby Dee, Lena Horne and James Earl Jones. The photographs Rudolph P. Byrd has selected for this volume come from the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters, which Ven Vechten established at Yale University. Byrd has arranged the images chronologically, according to the time at which each subject emerged as a vital presence in African American tradition. Complementing the photographs are an introduction by Byrd, biographical sketches of each subject and poems by the noted writer Michael S. Harper. Rudolph P. Byrd is the author of “Jean Toomer’s Years with Gurdjieff” and editor of Jean Toomer’s “Essentials”.