W.E.B. Du Bois Revisited: Re-imagining Du Bois' work from 'The Exhibit of American Negroes' from the 1900 Paris Exposition."
At the turn of the 20th century, W.E.B. Du Bois boarded a ship to Paris aiming to prove that Black Americans, newly freed and fiercely determined, could be measured not by caricature but by data, dignity, beauty and achievement.
The “Exhibit of American Negroes” at the 1900 Paris Exposition was a pioneering work of hundreds of photographs, dozens of infographics and more, all aimed at presenting on the world stage the achievements of African Americans.
Du Bois’ goal was to push back on the dominant racist narratives of the time by showing what Black Americans had been able to achieve in less than 40 years after the end of slavery. Then a professor at Atlanta University, Du Bois worked with his students and an Atlanta photographer to create the striking data visualizations and curate the photographs for the exhibit.
“We have thus, it may be seen, an honest, straightforward exhibit of a small nation of people, picturing their life and development without apology or gloss, and above all made by themselves. In a way this marks an era in the history of the Negroes of America,” Du Bois wrote.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Mirtha Donastorg and Natrice Miller, under the direction of senior writer Ernie Suggs,have re-created a handful of the visualizations with contemporary economic and demographic data, and the photographs with modern looks at the lives of Black Georgians.
