Fandom High School

Today, the art classroom was pretty bare bones, just multiple 35mm cameras on the table, one for each student.

"Sup class," Hardison said when they came in. "Today, the artist we're learnin' about is Moneta Sleet Jr, the first African American to win a Pulitzer prize for journalism, based on his picture of Coretta Scott King and her daughter, Bernice King, at the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, after he was assassinated." He handed around copies of that picture so they could see it. "This wasn't the first time Sleet had worked with the Kings; he was originally sent to Alabama to cover the boycotts in 1955, at the start of what would become the Civil Rights Movement. He was unapologetic about his bias for the movement, too, sayin' 'I wasn't there as an objective reporter. I had something to say and was trying to show one side of it. We didn't have any problems finding the other side.' He photographed many of the civil rights leaders, a lot of the black heads of state from Africa, an' black celebrities like Mohammed Ali, Haile Selassie, Stevie Wonder, Jomo Kenyatta, an' Billie Holiday. An exhibition of his work in '86 also included a photo of a Florida coin-op laundry with a sign that said Especially for colored folk as a reminder of the livin' history of this country."

So many people forgot that the Civil Rights Movement had happened just a generation or so ago. Most of those people were still alive and active today, including Hardison's own Nana.

"Photography is just as much a visual art as paintin' an' sculptin'. Your homework for today an' the rest of the week is to take one of them cameras an' take pictures. As many pictures as you want--I got extra film I can hand out if you want it--but at least least one whole roll of film. So that's about 36 pictures, an' I want at least fifteen of 'em to substantially different from each other, a'ight?"

Hardison had no problems with taking a bunch of shots to get the best one, but he did want them to work on taking a range of pictures.

"Next week, we'll learn how to develop them in a dark room. Until then, grab your camera an' go."