Photo series "Simple Gifts" celebrates San Jose State University's Black faculty

By D. Michael Cheers

Dr. Deborah Willis taught me how to picture us. Not to frame or take a photograph, but how to see, study and dissect the souls of Black folk beyond aperture settings and shutter speeds.

I’ve known Dr. Willis for more than 20 years. A professor and chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, she is one of the nation’s leading historians of African American photography.

Long ago her 1995 book, “Picturing Us, African American Identity in Photography,” became a staple of photography books in my collection on Black culture alongside “The Sweet Flypaper of Life,” by Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes, and anything written or photographed by Gordon Parks.

I remember thumbing through Ebony and Jet magazines as a child fixated on the photography. Even then I wanted to explore the nexus and soul of the Black community.

I would later work for those magazines for parts of three decades. I began my career on South Michigan Avenue in Chicago armed with three degrees — undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism and a master’s in African American Studies, all from Boston University. But none of the book knowledge could compare to the education I received in Chicago at the Johnson Publishing Company. There, John H. Johnson and his editors, patiently schooled me on the importance of understanding the Black community intrinsically, not just its parts.

I’ve been on this point, arguing the case for more than four decades, constructing and deconstructing, imagining and re-imagining African American cultural identity through the lens of social construct.

To me images in Black publications and weekly newspapers were more representative and therefore more accurate to the world I was growing up in. These images ran counter — in my mind — to the stereotypical racial images so often depicted on the covers and pages of mainstream publications.

The more I studied, the deeper the word Identity got caught in my throat and spirit. Every day Identity remains etched in my mind, stretching me scholastically as a photojournalism educator. Dr. Willis collected 17 essays by Black writers, critics and filmmakers for her book. Many of the contributors, she wrote in her preface, “chose a family snapshot to take them back to the past and to contextualize their self-image within a larger social framework. Many of the discussions are self-referential and open-minded. But they are all inspiring, as each of the contributors examines the impact of one or two images on their lives, as well as the larger questions on how photography and African American identity have shaped each other.”

I snapped my first picture of our family Christmas celebration at age 8, with a plastic camera, a gift from my grandmother. Opening the packet containing those drugstore black-and-white prints meant more to me than opening any toy on Christmas morning.

For years I taught myself photography and then peered deeper trying to frame my images at the intersection of Black thought and identity. Twenty-five years ago, I harnessed my ideas and those of other Black photographers and editors around conceptualizing photography and African American identity. The result was the behemoth photo project “Songs of My People.”

Last fall, still very much influenced by Dr. Willis, I asked all 18 Black tenured and tenure-track faculty at San José State University, to participate in a unique portrait series. I asked my colleagues to reflect on why they became professors, and then select a Simple Gift — a family heirloom or keepsake — from which they draw strength and wisdom. I photographed them and then collected video narratives that highlight the richness of the fabric of Black culture and identity.

Like Dr. Willis’ “Picturing Us” contributors who chose the family snapshot, the Black faculty at San José State University, selected an assortment of personal keepsakes — a family photo album, pictures of grandparents, family Bibles, a multi-generational family pocket watch, a figurine of a Black teacher found in a knickknack store for $3.65, a Nigerian family drum, a violin, a hand-stitched blouse sewn with a mother’s love, a photo taken with Rosa Parks, another with Gordon Parks, to name a few — all gathered and contextualized to bring forth a self-image within a larger social framework.

“Simple Gifts: Celebrating SJSU’s Black Faculty,” will be unveiled in a reception on campus on May 9.