Photo: Richard Frishman - ghostsofsegregation.com
Richard Frishman 'Ghosts of Segregation'
Richard Frishman with the 'Ghosts of Segregation' exhibition
Spread across the walls throughout the furnished rooms at the Charles Allis Art Museum is an exhibition of photographs, a contemporary reflection on a chapter of America’s past that refuses to remain closed. “Ghosts of Segregation” collects beautifully composed photos by Richard Frishman, taken recently at places that were crucial—or representative—of our nation’s fraught history of racism.
Photo: Richard Frishman - ghostsofsegregation.com
Richard Frishman: Medgar Evers' house
Richard Frishman: Medgar Evers' house
Frishman titles his photographs with the straightforwardness of a documentarian. University of Alabama Foster Auditorium is a frontal shot of the building where Gov. George Wallace notoriously “stood in the schoolhouse door.” On June 11, 1963, Wallace physically blocked two Black students from entering a college that had recently been desegregated by federal court order. Several of Frishman’s photos are specifically linked to one another. The caption below Foster Auditorium notes that on the night of June 12, 1963, NAACP activist Medgar Evers was murdered in nearby Jackson, Mississippi. Frishman’s exhibit also includes a photo of Evers’ home, a modest one-story midcentury dwelling where he was assassinated on his driveway by the Ku Klux Klan.
The roots of American racism in slavery are displayed with Frishman’s artful capture of light and shadow across the façade of the Slave Exchange building on Chartres Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Frishman doesn’t ignore the resilience of African American culture during and after slavery. Po Monkey’s Juke Joint captures a tin-roofed wooden shack outside Merigold, Mississippi resembling the places where Robert Johnson entertained sharecropper audiences with “Terraplane Blues” and “Sweet Home Chicago.” But Po Monkey’s, the caption tells us, first opened in 1961 (23 years after Johnson’s death) and is the last juke joint of its kind in the Mississippi Delta.
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Photo: Richard Frishman - ghostsofsegregation.com
Richard Frishman: Hanging Tree, Goliad, Texas
Richard Frishman: Hanging Tree, Goliad County, Texas
“Ghosts of Segregation” also contains reminders that racism and white supremacy wasn’t confined to the South. A visitor’s bureau-worthy photo of Chicago’s enchanting lakefront is captioned with an account of the Windy City’s 1919 race riot. The anti-Black violence was triggered when a Black swimmer accidently crossed into a “white’s only” section of the beach. The riot lasted five days. Thirty-eight died.
Frishman’s photographic journey across the U.S. reminds us that when seen with knowledgeable eyes, America’s landscape remains haunted by past events that continue to shape the present day. “The Ghosts of Segregation” runs through Dec. 4 at the Charles Allis Art Museum, 1801 N. Prospect Ave. For more information, visit cavtmuseums.org.
