“The Negroes are so wilful and loth to leave their own country that they have often leap’d overboard and kept under water till they were drowned to avoid being taken up and saved by our boats…. I put them all in leg-irons; and if these be [not] enough, I put a collar around their neck, with a chain lock to a ring-on the deck; if one chain won’t do, I put two and if two won’t do, I put three.”
THE STORY BEHIND THE FACE
Although the Emancipation Proclamation was a monumental document in our nation’s history, reaffirming the Constitutional doctrine stating that “ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL,” the struggle for equality was by no means an easy one for early African-Americans. Their challenge was to fill the void left by countless unfulfilled promises.
As time elapsed in our nation’s history, promises to African-Americans quickly turned into restrictions against them, and violations of these restrictions yielded dangerous liabilities. Thus, the ushering in the infamous “Jim Crow” era is but one example of the mistreatment that ultimately catapulted millions of African-Americans into writing their own documents of history.
The photographic collage, entitled “Emancipation,” attempts to convey the poignant message of African-Americans struggles, by capturing the images of courageous men and women who walked on the well traveled path towards freedom, whether it be freedom by expression of mind or freedom by way of symbolism.
These men and women, encompassing artists, patriots, martyrs, athletes, educators, social activists, religious and civil rights leaders, they are only a small army of the many freedom fighters who served as a reminder, and as an educational tool for the next generation of leaders, who also wish to emancipate themselves.
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