Five organizers of Harlem Week are photographed mid-strut down 126th Street and Lenox Avenue in May of 1994. They are on their way to a news conference on the event, which was celebrating its 20th anniversary that year.
The historic figures are not only in front of the camera in this photograph, but also behind it. The photo was shot by Don Hogan Charles, the first Black photographer hired by The New York Times and widely regarded for his poignant images of the civil rights movement and of everyday life in New York. A lifelong New Yorker and longtime resident of Harlem, Charles photographed historically Black neighborhoods with nuance, thoughtfulness and depth, providing a fuller portrait of life not previously seen by many readers. In the words of his colleague Chester Higgins, who joined The Times as one of a small number of Black photographers in 1975, “He felt that his responsibility was to get the story right, that the white reporters and white photographers were very limited.”
This photograph is from The New York Times “morgue” — the basement repository in Times Square where approximately six million pictures are stored. It is one of the oldest, largest and most comprehensive libraries in the world, with photos dating back to the turn of the last century. It’s also a working archive — its black-and-white photographs are used every day for the newspaper. To maintain the historical integrity of the image, the photograph is reprinted in its original hard-copy condition, showing cropping indicators, reference numbers and airbrushing by retouchers to highlight specific areas.
