Operation Understanding DC | weekend retreat, meeting with Shoah survivors

Operation Understanding DC, a program for Black and Jewish teenagers in the DC area whose mission since 1993 is "... empowering a generation of social justice leaders who will promote respect, understanding and cooperation while fighting to eradicate racism, anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination."

The participants recently visited relevant sites in Farmville and Richmond, Virginia, and returned to DC to hear testimony from two Holocaust survivors,  Peter Feigl and Rose-Helene Spreiregen. They also met with students from an allied program from Atlanta, Georgia, the Black Jewish Teen Initiative.

Thanks to the OUDC students, to Mr. Feigl and Ms. Spreiregen, and OUDC's staff, Dr. Linda J. Mann, Xochi Quetzali Cartland, Kyla Goldsby, and Alix Swann.

I have been documenting OUDC since its founding by Karen Kalish in 1993.

Peter Feigl

Rose-Helene Spreiregen.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today we honor an exemplar of the highest ideals of our nation, a brave, just, and moral leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., z'l. 

May we all learn from and follow his example; to stay strong, focused, ethical, wise, and compassionate.

Black in The Day: Photographs of historic Black Arlington | An invitation

 You are invited to the opening of Black in The Day: Photographs of historic Black Arlington

a showing of photographs by Lloyd Wolf from the collection of the National Endowment for the Arts Survey Grant-funded Arlington Photographic Documentary Project (APDP).

The opening is:

Sunday May 5th from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM

at

FOHTA® Gallery (From One Hand to Another)

2206 South Monroe Street, Arlington VA 22206

Forty-five black-and-white photographs from Green Valley, Halls Hill, and Johnson Hill were all made in 1980 of these historically Black neighborhoods in Arlington, Virginia.

Many were made possible by the aid and direction of the late John Robinson.. Only a handful of the pictures have been seen by the public before.

The exhibition will run through June 19 (Juneteenth), 2024

For further information contact Felecia McFail, gallery director - Fohta@Fohta.com

See you there!

SNCC Legacy portraits 2023

I again had the opportunity to make portraits of SNCC Legacy Project's board members. SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) comprised much of the vanguard of the civil rights movement.  They have continued to do meaningful work for society, as well as having being in the forefront of moving our nation toward fulfilling its stated ideals of equality and freedom for all during the crucial efforts of the 1960's.

Every one of these individuals is a  true American hero, brave righteous champions for justice and freedom.

May we carry on their important and still very necessary work.

Thanks to DC's own Sharlene Kranz of the SNCC Legacy Project for the assignment

Joan Higginbotham - Astronaut

I recently photographed Joan Higginbotham, engineer and former NASA astronaut who served aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-116 as a mission specialist. She was the third African-American woman to take part in a space mission.

She spoke to the American Clinical Laboratory Association about her challenges and trailblazing successes.

Johnson Family picnic | Berryville VA

From Malachi's birthday party, Berryville, Virginia. 

Odyssey, and Dion with Dessa Johnson.

And a co-worker of Dion's.

Quarantine Diary 44 | Black Lives Matter Plaza DC, the night before the election was decided

Demonstrators near the White House in Washington DC the night before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared the winners of the presidential election. 

You could feel the tension and worry, but also a sense of the winds beginning to shift away from the darkness of the past four years. 

People were demanding and ready for change.