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The Oakland Tribune’s First Black Photojournalist Captured the ‘Black Aesthetic’ of the ’60s and ’70s

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The Oakland Tribune’s First Black Photojournalist Captured the ‘Black Aesthetic’ of the ’60s and ’70s


You know that curiosity that pops up sometimes when you’re in a gallery and you’re looking at a really good photo of a stranger? And the spirit of it, the everyday-ness of it, makes you want to know the person’s story? Were they happy in life? What were their struggles? What was their day like before and after that picture was taken? Are they still alive?

That’s the feeling I had looking at Kenneth P. Green Sr.’s photographs, now on display at the Jewett Gallery in San Francisco’s Main Public Library. The exhibition, titled Toward a Black Aesthetic and on view through April 21, features Green Sr.’s mostly never-before-seen images capturing Bay Area Black women’s beauty and style in the 1960s and ’70s.

“There was a certain charisma and fashion that they left the house with, knowing that they had to represent themselves. Otherwise they were going to be ignored,” says Kenneth P. Green Jr., Green Sr.’s son and co-curator of the exhibition. 


Read full article @ KQED