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1 of 10Rehabilitation client and his family on Lady's Sound off Beaufort, S.C., 1936.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © Carl Mydans -
2 of 10Two schoolgirls holding hands as they hang upside down from a jungle gym. Circa 1940s.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Joe Schwartz and Family, © Joe Schwartz -
3 of 10From "The Way of Life of the Northern Negro:" Untitled, 1946-1948.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © Wayne F. Miller -
4 of 10Two paper boys sitting on a bench, 1947.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from Charles A. Harris and Beatrice Harris in memory of Charles "Teenie" Harris, © Carnegie Museum of Art, Charles "Teenie" Harris Archive -
5 of 10Young children and members of the San Francisco Chapter of the National Council of Negro Women with placards standing next to a car that was part of the Citizenship Education Project motorcade urging people to register to vote. Sept. 8, 1956.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Frances Albrier Collection, ©Cox Studio -
6 of 10Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Martin Luther King III, 1962.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Monica Karales and the Estate of James Karales © Estate of James Karales -
7 of 10Group of twelve children shown clustered on a tree-lined paved surface. Upstate New York, 1963.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Brigitte Freed in memory of Leonard Freed, © Leonard Freed/Magnum -
8 of 10Man, woman, and child shown picking cotton in a field. Georgia, 1964.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Brigitte Freed in memory of Leonard Freed, © Leonard Freed/Magnum -
9 of 10First Watts Festival, 1965.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Joe Schwartz and Family, © Joe Schwartz -
10 of 10Young girl on DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. 1965.Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Builder Levy, © Builder Levy
Photographs featuring children tend to invoke the more cherished qualities of the human experience — innocence, an intense sense of hope and a will to seek silver linings. The images of African-American children that are featured in the upcoming Smithsonian photo book Picturing Children especially resonate with any family’s wish that their child be reminded of their “dignity and sacred worth [that] no outside force can touch,” as Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, says in one of the book’s introductory essays.
Picturing Children is host to scenes ranging from playful moments during summer camp, school recess and high school proms, to historic images of enslaved families and young marchers in the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. Some photographs feature instantly recognizable faces — Jackie Robinson and Dr. Martin Luther King with their children, President Barack Obama with a child in the Oval Office — while others capture quiet moments between the photographer and his or her unnamed subject, such as a photograph from Jamel Shabazz that features a boy in his community doing a flip on a beat-up mattress. Though the collection features both portraits and candid shots, taken together they offer a window into both individual lives and the arc of American history.
Picturing Children is the fourth installment in the Double Exposure series, released by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, on the heels of Through the African American Lens, Civil Rights and the Promise of Equality and African American Women.
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