ABSTRACT
Examples of contemporary African American activist imagery incorporate images that engage historical memories of both anti-Black violence and Civil Rights activism. This essay considers how this activist art disrupts structural silences around Black suffering and death while also aspiring for positive change and the furthering of legacies of former activist success. Reproducing historical photographs of past Black lives in contemporary activist settings visualizes the links between history and the present and the importance of historical memory for redressing the longue durée of slavery and anti-Blackness and its effects on Black American lives. Photographs’ ability to freeze time and render past lives as living likenesses certifies and amplifies both the persistence of systemic racial injustice and, in turn, the resiliency of grassroots activist resistance. This essay argues that such activist art employs the Black photographic archive as a powerful tool in the visualization of the continuing effects of the history of enslavement and of aspirations for positive change.
