Description:
Evocative new photographs of Connecticut by celebrated photographer William Earle Williams provide insight to the stories of Black American history
Their Kindred Earth gathers images of Black Connecticut's historic sites by celebrated photographer William Earle Williams. A series of texts illuminate how these sites connect to the larger national and international narrative of Black American history. Over the past forty years artist William Earle Williams (born 1950) has made sites of African American history more visible through his exquisite photographs. Mentored in the 1970s by the famed photographer Walker Evans, who had a home in Lyme, Williams attended the Yale School of Art at Evans's suggestion. From that Connecticut inception, Williams embarked on a decades-long journey to identify and photograph places across the country that hold histories of the slave trade, the Underground Railroad, and emancipation. Many remain unmarked and largely overlooked in a society that has long ignored Black history.
New archival research has yielded revelations about how we understand our local history. In this book, Williams' photographs bring visibility and pay tribute to the unrecognized people who contributed to Connecticut culture and its landscape. The book includes photographs from New London, Old Lyme, Farmington, Middletown, Norwich, New Haven, Hartford, Canterbury, Brooklyn (CT), New Jersey, and Manhattan, as well as sites of importance to Black figures in the state, such as Frederick Douglass and David Ruggles. It features essays by Frank Mitchell, Jennifer Stettler Parsons, Carolyn Wakeman, and a dialogue between William Earle Williams and Deborah Willis.
Review Quotes:
"What Willam does is through his lens, he shows us these contemporary landscapes. But he wants to remind us that so much happened on this land before our time, of the history of African Americans who contributed to our economy. Really, they are the reason we are here, because so much of their involuntary labor led to the successes of Connecticut and the land that we live on. With this exhibition we really want to honor them. We have their names, and their labor is so important. They really deserve to be remembered and honored. I think there is no better and more beautiful way to learn that history than through William's photographs."--Jenny Parsons, from an interview with Marcy Jones for WFSB-Channel 3
"William Earle William's ethereal photographs transport us back in time and to another place--familiar, and yet layered with new meaning... In his photographs Williams uncovers what has been buried and forgotten, and asks us to consider: who lived here? Who passed this way, perhaps on their way to freedom?"--Elizabeth J. Normen, Estuary: Life of the Connecticut River