LIFT: Expressions of the African American Experience in Jacksonville
Birthplace of James Weldon Johnson, who wrote Lift Every Voice and Sing
This work was created for a group show at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens. In it I explored the life, legacy and neighborhoods of James Weldon Johnson. In an attempt to understand hidden histories, I met with leaders in the Black community in Jacksonville and photographed them in buildings from the early 20th century with historical significance.
I researched Sandborn maps and layered them in encaustically onto the panels as a way of exploring the devastation of vibrant black communities.
Artist Statement
Researching the life of James Weldon Johnson, both through his autobiography and walking the LaVilla streets of his early years, I found myself yearning for the community he described Jacksonville to be: tolerant, vibrant, and a place where opportunity was abundant and neighbors, black, white, immigrant and natural born, all lived, worked and thrived together.
Each photograph represents a characteristic of James Weldon Johnson—educator, activist, artist, and diplomat. And each features an individual connected through history or vocation to the historic LaVilla building in which I photographed them. The photographs are encased in encaustic medium exploring how we preserve (or destroy) our collective history.
After the LIFT exhibition, I found myself wanting to record some of the stories I heard. Below, you can listen to Ms. Williamson talking about a very upsetting incident on her bus ride home from school. The second audio file is Ms. Williamson describing the loss of her older sister Margaret when they were growing up. Both stories illuminate the impact of racism in Jacksonville.
Old Stanton High SchoolPriscilla Williamson and Dolores Mitchell reminiscing in Room 315, their high school geometry classroom in Historic Stanton High School.
Rodney Hurst inside the Historic Masonic TempleRodney Hurst, author and activist, in the historic Masonic Temple on Broad Street where he and his fellow youth NAACP members met to plan sit ins. Mr. Hurst was one of a group of students protesting at a downtown lunch counter when a groups of white people in trucks pulled up with axes and violently attacked protesters and shoppers with the ax handles. This attack is known as Ax Handle Saturday, and Mr. Hurst writes about his experiences in his book, It was never about a hot dog and a Coke.”
Mal Jones and Genovar's Hall Mal Jones, Jacksonville hip hop and folk artist with his son in Genovar's Hall where jazz greats like Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway played.
Local LaVilla children, historic Lavilla maps, book pages from Baldwin writings Students (children of lawyers, judges and residents of the nearby Clara White Mission) from LaVilla local preschool, newspaper clippings, Sandborn Fire Insurance documents.
Reverend Bishop Mckissick Senior at historic Bethel Baptist Church sitting in front of the pipe organs where his mother took piano lessons from Rosamond Johnson.