the first thing one must understand when they're looking at my work is that it's not simply an i think of my work as a project, a project that deals the migration patterns of, black people, what happens to their traditional culture when they

leave the rural area and come to the urban areas, have how those traditions change, how new ones come about, what to the quality of life for and so i hoping that through my work i can help people better look at themselves and, gain a better understanding of their traditional folk life practices. one of my biggest concerns now is the use of photo documentation for historical preservation in the study of culture, the use of the camera as an adjunct to, the study in culture can be invaluable when

it comes to preserving what is still available for future. the fact. a photograph is still worth a thousand words. when we started to our young today and our grandchildren about the times in which we are living and that our parents have in. they may have many questions. if you have a photograph is constructed well it gives you enough about that period then your chances of explaining to that generation are a lot greater. right now. in america it's very popular. a lot of folk scholars and in anthropology and people in art to try to make a comparison between what is happening in traditional black art and, folk culture and what is happening in

other africa. it's a given that when black people were uprooted mother africa, and brought to this country with them, they brought traditions in, basket making blacks, woodcarving and even quilting. as far as that goes. that had been handed down in mother africa centuries. one of the things that happened with black people when they came to america, of course, they had to adapt whatever skills they had to move serials that were available here. i see. so where a man may make baskets in nigeria out of some sort of weed or reed in mississippi people make a lot of baskets of pine needles because they a lot pine trees a of people make baskets out of white oak it's all depending on how one is going to use the basket. as we race rapidly into.

21st century. many of the crafts, the traditional folk life practices. are vanishing. one of the reasons they are vanishing is people longer are practicing them. but if you look very hard and go through the backwoods, you can find people who are still practitioners of traditional crafts quilters. there are many people still around quilting, but they are generally people over 50. it's a lot simpler. a young woman today to go buy a blanket from the store and take the time that it takes to sit down and piece up the top of a quilt and then roll up on a quilting frame and then stick the needle through all three levels and quilted.

and so you find some of the senior citizens or the older black people who still have a tremendous love for this tradition, you find them doing it, but you don't find a lot of young people doing it. there are some who are young who are interested, but for most part it's the older people still do this when that generation of quilters pass on, they just won't be anymore. i'm quite of old people and i listen a lot to what they have to say because they've spent all of years storing up wisdom and knowledge and many young people really don't go to them enough and draw on this tremendous reservoir of wisdom and knowledge. and so i've learned a lot by setting listening, and it's helped me tremendously in my work in rocks in mississippi.

liz, a lady by the name miss annie mason, who is in her eighties. one day, miss annie mason and i was sitting in her bedroom and she went into a drawer and pulled out a very old bible, traditional lee but most people black, white in america before one people could get birth certificates would record when someone was born and when someone died in the family bible. and so she brought out this old book and begin to show me how the history of the family had been recorded in the bible. all of this here, she told me this neat story that one of her uncles right here used to sleep this bible under his head for years. he did this because his mother

told him to always keep the bible close to him. so was passed on to her. this uncle thought enough of her and her sense of family history to make her the keeper of this bible and she is one of the few people who i met who has a tremendous sense of historical preservation of her family roots. i tell you her family has a unique pride that i have seldom seen in most communities that i visited. they are closely knit family. they have struggled together over the years. they work together. they love and they care of one another. when i was last visiting her. she had come out of the hospital and a lot of the family was just around and i saw that as a

wonderful opportunity to document and make a photograph for. the family of four generations of women. because of my my patterns of black people, sometimes very difficult to find that many generations living that close together. they the land they live close to the land. and it was just really a wonderful experience kind of know them meet them every minute and photograph them all right. come on, look at me. look right. i don't think of these people like like most anthropologists or folklorists with think of the people who they're working. i don't think of these people as my subjects or informants. these are folks who are friends of mine.

i come from a poor background. and so my early photo essays on black life reflect the background from which i come because it was what i was most with and what i was most concerned in with. i've tried in my work to photograph poor people, but photograph with dignity. you see too many photographers go for the cheap sensation or way of doing things because the popular media has always wanted it. i believe that a person can be poor, but they are still some. all these people you see in my work, i working that's. america would not be the strong country it is now had it not been for the fact in its early

years or its early stages of development, there was free black slave labor. so i maintain that these people just as important in this culture, anyone else and i will always on them.

as a young person. my fascination with street life, my fascination with. men and who work worked on horse and wagons. uh, was just tremendous. now, what is this. what do i mean? there is there is a tradition in most eastern united states cities where, people who are city dwellers wear a fresh produce and many other things. it was it was carried on horse and wagons like today trucks bring everything this tradition of supplying city dwellers with fresh fruits and produce goes

back to when the history the city began and you travel through the marketplaces of the world and especially africa. you will find this still on as a young kid cowboy. western movies were very popular so it was quite a thing to come of the theater and then see horse and wagons. i became a helper to these men. there's a folk tradition in my family where back far as my great grandfather people did this in my family and it's just like a lot of young men will maybe sell newspapers as something to do when growing up. i did this. my fascination for this was one of the things that kept me on the street. i am i consider myself truly, truly blessed.

as a result of having this experience, because what learned through that process has deeply enriching me as a person and broadened me. and in abled me to deal with people everywhere i go in the world. and so as a document photographer, this is proven to be an invaluable experience experience. when i worked in mississippi had i not once lived on a farm and understood farming, i probably would not have been able to relate as well to people who are rural. when i went to africa one of the things that enabled me to work very well in the countryside was because my basic understand of farming and rural people, folk don't differ much anywhere that

i went the same type people exist they are the rural or are urban. i think of my work. not only as a a essay or an exhibit or book, but i think of it as an ongoing documentary project, an evolutionary project. i will be doing this photography until i die. and so where the photographs that i have devoted most my time to tell this point in my life have been of the poorer classes of. i am also photographing what is commonly known as the middle class, the upper middle class and the rich. in many parts of the world. the images that people have of

black americans are generally just the images of the downtrodden, the poor, the dope addicts and pictures are seldom ever shown of the people are prospers and who are making it and who are sharing parts of the american dream. our objective in america was to become educated and to move into mainstream america. our objective was to get a good education and to get jobs. and we are now doing that black in america are probably making more headway as far as equipping themselves to deal with the times in which we are living than a lot of the brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. that's only because we have access to so much. i mean, we truly live very lavishly here compared to how people live in other parts of the world.

a poor person in america may very well have a television hot and cold running water and may even have a car and be considered when africa someone's considered poor or the caribbean, they literally may not even a house to live in. and so i'm concerned about these things and i'm concerned about how the black middle class looks at the lower socioeconomic level of black life, how the rich use their riches when it comes to helping their less fortunate brothers. i see a lot of similarities in the problems that black people in america are confronted with and the problems black people in africa are confronted with. people migrating from the city to the urban centers for

employment. this is a problem. all the world finding work to sustain most of the are always located near big urban centers as people leave the land. one of the same things that is happening in america is happening in africa. people losing their land and people are losing the traditions. i'm very interested in starting a project with brothers in africa and the caribbean to document whatever part of our tradition or culture that still exists before. it vanishes. that is just of the utmost importance to me. while working and living in nigeria. because i'm interested in traditional culture and what happens. traditional culture. one of the things i wanted to do and do was meet photographers

and, different people working in area of communications, mass media to try to get an understanding of how they looked at their own traditional culture and, rapidly changing culture. some of photographers. let me know in a in certain ways that they were very unhappy with the way the images of africa in general and nigeria and specifically were being projected in the popular in the west. what they were really saying was something that touched me deeply because it was this some of the same kinds of feelings i had about the way black people are generally projected in the popular media, not only in america but throughout the world. so question then was to them

what, are you doing about changing this as a result of this what is beginning to what has already been happening but is beginning to get wider exposure is more young are focusing on documenting writing about their own culture as more and more countries gain independence and also gain more control over. the popular media the magazines, newspapers, televisions, radios in their own countries, it will be interesting to see how they project their own images. they seems to be one segment of middle class class black folk

who respond positive to this set of to my work. and there's another group of people who look at my photographs. who are bothered by the photographs. i then to ask myself, why are they. one of the reasons people are bothered is in their endeavors to so-call overcome. there are many things they want to forget and this is because of the way that the dominant culture has different folk to look at themselves. for instance, there may be things that i would consider to be of significance as far as historical preservation is

concerned. other people may say they are not significant. i want to forget them. the question then becomes what is important? what is important is that people in, any ethnic group, regardless of their background, look at what has gone before and learn from that because the products of our heritage often serve to authenticate our presence through cultural cultural continuity and cultural awareness. thus the photo document becomes extremely. as a communicative process or tool to help you better understand yourself and your own roots and help you better to move from that forward. because if you understand where

been and learn from that experience, that will help you develop the foundation upon you can build a stronger tomorrow for yourself and your children and your family. and.

gene jarrett came to princeton to become dean of the faculty professor in english about a year ago. and so i'm so glad to know that this book brings you to