While working in Georgia, I am trying to consider the long threads of history: how they come together to weave the present moment, tethering the present to the past. If Iām to make work that helps people see past their bubbles into the lives of another, mustnāt I look backward, to see how these bubbles were created?
In Newnan, black and white people have lived side by side ā and in almost equal numbers ā since its founding, in the early 1800s. At that time, Scotch-Irish and English settlers moved inland from the coast, bringing their families, their animals, and their slaves. Many built cotton plantations and immense fortunes ā soon turned to dust by the Civil War. In the following decades, poor white farmers and freed black slaves, both now tied to the land as sharecroppers, would replant the cotton and bring it to harvest. The landowners, with their newly built textile mills, would turn that crop into a dazzling wealth. By 1910, a local newspaper reported that Newnan was the fourth-wealthiest town per capita in the United States.
Iāve noticed that with many white people in Newnan, talk of the power structure that underpinned the townās beginnings is met with hushed tones, or outright resistance. What does that have to do with today?, Iām sometimes asked. What is the cutoff date, beyond which we donāt have to talk about this anymore? But with members of the black community, talk of those times rises quickly to the surface. Speaking of his ancestorsā contribution to the townās white ruling class, one black man told me, āI earned that money for them, and I didnāt get anything.ā
So in thinking about Newnanās founders, I wondered where I might meet their descendants today. I was told they attend Central Baptist Church.
On the Sunday that I visited the church, Barbara caught my eye. She was petite and trim, with a bright blond bob and a rosy-pink jacket. She looked the way Iād imagined a Southern woman would look, and I asked to be introduced to her. I told her about my project, and asked if sheād be willing to let me make her portrait. She laughed, and agreed to let me call her later that week. I asked if she would wear the same pink jacket.
Barbara told me that sheād moved a log cabin onto her parentsā property, but when I arrived at the address I found myself in front of a white house. I called Barbara on her cell phone, and she told me that I was at her parentsā house, but that sheād come to get me. While I waited I looked around ā at the vast woods, the flower garden, the American-eagle ornaments everywhere. I couldnāt help noticing a small statue, situated on one of the houseās front steps. It portrayed a black child seated with his ankles crossed, holding an American flag. It shocked me.
Barbara arrived, and we sat down on those steps. She told me about herself ā that sheād been a flight attendant for Delta, that she competed in triathlons, that she had two grown children. She had just moved back home, to be near her family, after living in Atlanta for two decades. She told me that her parentsā house had been built before the Civil War, and that the land had been in her fatherās family since the early 1800s. She said that her motherās family had been in the cotton-gin business.
When I asked if I could make Barbaraās portrait there, as she sat on those steps, she chafed a little. She put her hand on the statue and said, āDoesnāt this offend you, sort of, a little? I mean itās kind of cute, but can you imagine some black person walking up and seeing that? If I had a friend of mine whoās black come here,ā she went on, āI just donāt think theyād appreciate their race sitting on the steps. Theyāre portrayed as being a slave, like āthe good old days.ā I just donāt know about Little Black Sambo out here. Itās not nice.ā
For the next hour Barbara and I talked about this portrayal. She told me about Elvo, her family's African-American maid, whom she had loved growing up, and her grandmother's beloved chauffeur, who once drove a birthday cake all the way up to Barbara in Atlanta. āThey were not viewed as anything different,ā said Barbara. I wondered if she meant that they werenāt viewed as unequal.
āBut they were, kind of like, in their place, though,ā I said.
āThatās what their place was, yeah. Thatās how we viewed 'em, as just kind of helping.ā
āYeah, there you go,ā she said. āThe Help. Driving Miss Daisy.ā
I could tell Barbara didnāt want to criticize her parents, yet she talked of their views as both generational and persistent. I asked her to name a stereotype of black people that sheād often heard. āLazy,ā she said quickly, and added, āWhen I lived in Atlanta, you know, you just see a black guy walking with his pants half down and youāre scared to death. I am. I donāt know why.ā
Then she told me a story about a running group she had belonged to, which worked out with homeless men, most of whom were black. Three times a week she rose at dawn, picked up the men in her car, and took them on long runs. They charted one another's progress, and competed in races. āItās amazing how you get to know someone like that,ā she said. āI mean, you encourage them to come work out, and they become your best friends. And oh my God, it was just a rude awakening. It will be a lifetime experience Iāll have forever. It was wonderful.ā
When we were finished making photographs, Barbara and I agreed that weād meet again before I left town. I admired her honesty, and in the following days I imagined her as somehow wedged between a generation compelled to portray a black person in humiliating caricature ā a childlike object on a step ā and a generation to which people of color might appear as equals.
I showed Barbara's portrait to a few people ā including a friend of mine, who is black, who said, āShe let you set her up like that?,ā and Barbaraās mother, who said, breezily, āOh I love that youāve got the little black man in there!ā When I showed it to Barbara, she gasped at her appearance, making a joke about needing plastic surgery. But then she said, āI love it.
āI love the picture because I think it speaks about the way our country is so divided right now. It speaks about the controversy between the blacks and the whites. . . . You have the Southern house ā the Antebellum house ā and the Little Black Sambo holding the American flag. And then youāve got the eagle, which is the symbol of our country. And youāve got the white supremacy.ā
āBarbara,ā I said, āthis picture puts you in the position of the white supremacy.ā
āThatās what Iām saying,ā she said. āIt puts me in the position of the white supremacy. I donāt like that. But thatās how it is.ā