Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White came about through the confluence of two significant events around 1994: the enthusiastic reception surrounding the publication of a similarly themed title, Behold the People: R. C. Hickman\u27s Photographs of Black Dallas, 1949-1961; and Littlejohn\u27s family contacting the director of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin about possibly donating his prints and negatives there. These are significant because they point to the need for an archive to preserve and organize material of this scope-some 70,000 negatives and 55,000 prints made over the course of a more than fifty-year career-as well as the identification of an audience for this historical, regional subject matter

Williams, Carla

English

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska

University of Nebraska - LincolnDigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - LincolnGreat Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center forFall 2010Review of Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Communityin Black and White by Bob Ray SandersCarla WilliamsRochester Institute of TechnologyFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterlyPart of the American Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, and the United StatesHistory CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Ithas been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln.Williams, Carla, "Review of Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White by Bob Ray Sanders" (2010). Great PlainsQuarterly. 2602.http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2602324 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2010                                      Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White. By Bob Ray Sanders. Foreword by Don Carleton. Fort Worth: TCU Press, 2009. xi + 200 pp. Photographs. $29.95. Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White came about through the conflu-ence of two significant events around 1994: the enthusiastic reception surrounding the publication of a similarly themed title, Behold the People: R. C. Hickman's Photographs of Black Dallas, 1949-1961; and Littlejohn's family contacting the director of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin about possibly donating his prints and negatives there. These are significant because they point to the need for an archive to preserve and organize material of this scope-some 70,000 negatives and 55,000 prints made over the course of a more than fifty-year career-as well as the identification of an audience for this historical, regional subject matter. The resulting volume is a significant contribution to our understanding of African American life in the twentieth century. Calvin Littlejohn (1909-1993) belongs to a history of African American commer-cial photographers that begins with operators like James Presley Ball originating in Cincinnati and the Goodridge brothers in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and includes James VanDerZee in Harlem, the Scurlock Studio in Washington, DC, Richard Samuel Roberts in North Carolina, and Charles "Teenie" Harris in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, among others. Theirs is a tremendously significant contribution to this country's visual history, because it was these photographers who consciously corrected the one-sided public image of African Americans being told through the lenses of white photographers. Indeed, the book opens with a quote from Littlejohn recol-lecting the moment when watching a billboard being erected of a black boy eating watermelon he made a conscious decision to "show the best side" of African Americans. Journalist Bob Ray Sanders's biographical essay is brief, light, and engaging; it weaves many quotes from the oral history recorded with Littlejohn before his death in 1993 and thus the reader gets a good sense of the imagemaker. It is clearly aimed at a general audience; while it paints a vivid picture of Littlejohn's career it does not delve into the his-tory of photography to contextualize Littlejohn's work within that history. If it had, it might have even more greatly expanded its audience's under-standing of Littlejohn's significance. The images are divided into subject categories that correspond to Littlejohn's work with brief introductory notes: schools, businesses, community and social events, churches, sports and entertainment, and world leaders-a "visual social history," as Don Carleton, Executive Director of the Briscoe Center, calls such work in his foreword. So why is a book like this of interest to an audi-ence outside of Fort Worth or even the Great Plains region? What does it contribute to the history of photography or, more specifically, the history of black photographers? In 2010 it is still common to hear people remark, when shown an image of middle-class African Americans from the first half of the twentieth century, that they had no idea such positive circumstances existed. Calvin Littlejohn bears eloquent witness to a history that still needs telling. CARLA WILLIAMS School of Photographic Arts and Sciences Rochester Institute of Technology BOOK REVIEWS 325                                 

Review of \u3ci\u3eCalvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White\u3c/i\u3e by Bob Ray Sanders

UNL | Libraries

University of Nebraska - Lincoln
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for
Fall 2010
Review of Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community
in Black and White by Bob Ray Sanders
Carla Williams
Rochester Institute of Technology
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly
Part of the American Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, and the United States
History Commons
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It
has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln.
Williams, Carla, "Review of Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White by Bob Ray Sanders" (2010). Great Plains
Quarterly. 2602.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2602
324 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2010 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black 
and White. By Bob Ray Sanders. Foreword by Don 
Carleton. Fort Worth: TCU Press, 2009. xi + 200 pp. 
Photographs. $29.95. 
Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in 
Black and White came about through the conflu-
ence of two significant events around 1994: the 
enthusiastic reception surrounding the publication 
of a similarly themed title, Behold the People: R. C. 
Hickman's Photographs of Black Dallas, 1949-1961; 
and Littlejohn's family contacting the director of 
the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History 
at the University of Texas at Austin about possibly 
donating his prints and negatives there. These are 
significant because they point to the need for an 
archive to preserve and organize material of this 
scope-some 70,000 negatives and 55,000 prints 
made over the course of a more than fifty-year 
career-as well as the identification of an audience 
for this historical, regional subject matter. 
The resulting volume is a significant contribution 
to our understanding of African American life in the 
twentieth century. Calvin Littlejohn (1909-1993) 
belongs to a history of African American commer-
cial photographers that begins with operators like 
James Presley Ball originating in Cincinnati and the 
Goodridge brothers in Pennsylvania and Michigan, 
and includes James VanDerZee in Harlem, the 
Scurlock Studio in Washington, DC, Richard Samuel 
Roberts in North Carolina, and Charles "Teenie" 
Harris in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, among others. 
Theirs is a tremendously significant contribution 
to this country's visual history, because it was these 
photographers who consciously corrected the one-
sided public image of African Americans being told 
through the lenses of white photographers. Indeed, 
the book opens with a quote from Littlejohn recol-
lecting the moment when watching a billboard being 
erected of a black boy eating watermelon he made a 
conscious decision to "show the best side" of African 
Americans. 
Journalist Bob Ray Sanders's biographical essay 
is brief, light, and engaging; it weaves many quotes 
from the oral history recorded with Littlejohn 
before his death in 1993 and thus the reader gets a 
good sense of the imagemaker. It is clearly aimed at 
a general audience; while it paints a vivid picture 
of Littlejohn's career it does not delve into the his-
tory of photography to contextualize Littlejohn's 
work within that history. If it had, it might have 
even more greatly expanded its audience's under-
standing of Littlejohn's significance. The images 
are divided into subject categories that correspond 
to Littlejohn's work with brief introductory notes: 
schools, businesses, community and social events, 
churches, sports and entertainment, and world 
leaders-a "visual social history," as Don Carleton, 
Executive Director of the Briscoe Center, calls such 
work in his foreword. 
So why is a book like this of interest to an audi-
ence outside of Fort Worth or even the Great Plains 
region? What does it contribute to the history of 
photography or, more specifically, the history of 
black photographers? In 2010 it is still common 
to hear people remark, when shown an image of 
middle-class African Americans from the first half 
of the twentieth century, that they had no idea such 
positive circumstances existed. Calvin Littlejohn 
bears eloquent witness to a history that still needs 
telling. 
CARLA WILLIAMS 
School of Photographic Arts and Sciences 
Rochester Institute of Technology 
BOOK REVIEWS 325 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


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Review of \u3ci\u3eCalvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White\u3c/i\u3e by Bob Ray Sanders

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