deborah willis. >> deborah willis. >> deborah willis started doing all these shows in cultivating and out there for the public to see. ♪ >> if not for deborah willis we probably all would have disappeared at some. ♪ >> c-span: who is she? >> guest: macarthur genius award-winning scholar groundbreaking scholar who has written definitive text on african-american contribution to photography. she is also an acclaimed artist a professor and chair at the university the new york university department of energy -- imaging and photography a a friend, mentor to many many people, and she in many ways single-handedly changed the way in which we look at african-american contributions to the field of photography. >> c-span: when did she start? >> guest: in the 70s. she was studying photography, and her teacher had told her that african-americans did not make contributions to photography. and she had her own path to actually prove this teacher on and to look not only to see what photographers there were and resuscitate them but also to look at the ways in which black families who were the principal