Thomas allen harris through a lens darkly is a book that examines how africanamericans are per trade in portrayed in photography, and it is also an autobiography, because my family is descendent of slavery. Brian lamb what is the story of you and your father . Thomas allen harris my father and mother divorced maybe when i was six or seven, and my father never took any photographs of my family my brother me, and both my brother and i are image makers, and my grandfather took thousands of photographs of a family. When i was making film, i was thinking about the way of framing and taking a picture of a family and what that says about both the person in front of the camera, the person behind the camera, and the connection between the two yeah, and a certain amount of grief because i never got to see myself and my family through my fathers lens . Brian lamb still alive . Thomas allen harris yes, my father is still alive. Brian lamb do you have a relationship with him today . Thomas allen harris yes perhaps you could call it a relationship. Brian lamb why did he not take any photos when it seems that everyone else and the family was taking thousands . Thomas allen harris well, he told me, i asked about a year or two ago, why he did not take photographs, and he said because your grandfather was taking so many images. Once my parents divorce, i very rarely saw him, and i did have a step debt, who stepdad who takes lots of photographs that he was part of the African National congress, he was south african, he was in exile, so he came to this country and spread the message the antiapartheid message and he basically raised me from the time that i was five years old nine years old. Brian lamb lets watch for the first minute or so to see what people can get a sense of what this is about. Announcer every negro boy and every negro girl born in this country had suffered long ago the agony in the body politic in the body social, outside the body of herself, and some images of himself and herself which is not demeaning. Thomas allen harris when you look in the mirror, who do you see . I am a professor of photography, i am an artist. I am a tap dancer. [laughter] Thomas Allen Harris you see yourself in the past and the future . Do you see yourself through your own eyes . When you look at a black person who do i see . Who do you see . Do ics now . Do i see us now . Do ics through a lens darkly do i see us through a lens darkly . Brian lamb why the name . Thomas allen harris through a lens darkly comes from the bible, corinthians, it is the 13th chapter, and it is, how do we see god . We see god right now through a lens, darkly, so it talks about reflections and the idea of seeing divinity within oneself, and the ways in which one can see the great art has been about reflection of the divinity and how certain types and how, within this country africanamericans are seen as the opera of being worthy, of is the opposite of being worthy, of something opposite of having value. Brian lamb how long did you live in africa and where . Thomas allen harris i lived in africa from the time of 1974 through 1976, and i lived in tanzania, which is in east africa. Brian lamb is there a way to characterize, i mean how old were you are are you there . Thomas allen harris i was there at the beginning of adolescence. Brian lamb but is there a way to characterize how africans look at themselves as compared to africanamericans look at themselves . Thomas allen harris yes, the film talks about that, and i think that generally in terms of africans, i think that africanamericans are a minority in this country, and a have a particular history, and a particular struggle here, whereas in particular african countries in which they are not necessarily i nor it is, i think are certain ethnic groups that are minorities, but i inc. There is i think there is also something in terms of the connection with diaspora. So a lot of African People look to america when it terms comes to terms of music or fashion, so there is a lot of back and forth. We went because my grandfather had a dream. He always wanted to go to africa. He was a follower of marcus garvey, and the University NegroImprovement Association in the 1920s, and he came from albany new york, and his dream was to get to the continent, and his dream was never for filled, but he passed that dream onto every one of his children. So my mom moved with me and my brother to east africa, so she went in some ways to fulfill his dream, but in some ways she was looking for that missing face of africa, we thought we could go back to a homeland, and see what thinking we were going back home, and what emerged is that we lacked that back home, there is a connection that we have definitely, but we are definitely americans. We had that connection to the homeland that we want to go back to, but in many ways it is missing. Brian lamb when did you graduate from harvard and what did you study there . Thomas allen harris i graduated in 1984 and i studied biology. 1. I was taking about becoming a biologist and going into microbiology, and going to medical school and doing at least an md, but at least an md phd, but it somehow didnt happen, and i realized and knew that i had always been a photographer, and had worked with images and poetry, and i was exley my ninth grade poet laureate in high school actually my ninth grade poet laureate in high school. But i did not know many filmmakers. But my mom is a scientist and i grew up in the lab, the chemistry lab. Also, when i was living in africa, the sciences translated from tanzania to america, so when i came back, i was able to fit right in, in terms of my studies. I went to an International School in tanzania, so my english was not very, i had basically learned english through secondhand English Speakers, well, not secondhand but not native English Speakers so growing up when i went to high school, i was not as comfortable with my english skills as much as with science and math, so when i applied to harvard, i immediately followed my strengths, so it took a while to really feel comfortable with my writing and other ways of expressing myself and to realize that somehow i could make a career as an artist, is a film maker. Brian lamb here is a story about your family and a little more about your father from the film. Thomas allen harris there are secret and every family. Secrets in every family. Sometimes buried very deeply and sometimes they are right out there in the open, willfully unseen. There is one place where all the secrets reside. In the family photo album. In what it chooses to represent. And in what is absent. Hidden. My secret . It is connected to the day my father left. On that day, i remember him roughly wiping of vaseline off of my face, saying do you want people out there to think you are a greasy monkey . Brian lamb why did you do that . Thomas allen harris why did i do what . Brian lamb why did you characterize that part of your life in the film that way . Thomas allen harris it was a big story. Everyone, i think, kind of has a take story that shapes their childhood, and this story happens to coincide with a big change in my life, my father leaving, and also his, in some ways, trying to pass on what to expect, growing up as an africanamerican male. I was not necessarily going to be seen in my fellow humanity and maybe he was also trying to tell me as a little boy, i was six years old or so, what he might have gone through as an African American male with dark skin, beautiful man, first one in his family to go to college with an immigrant so i think there is a lot in that story. I think when i was in tanzania, a lot of people would say, there were a lot of exiles that were there, and they would say that they did not necessarily have a fair shake in this country, in terms of africanamerican men. It is interesting because i have had this certain privilege in terms of being able to go to certain schools, whether it is a high school, a college or this kind of community access, but i do feel that what we are experiencing right now, in terms of on the streets of this coulter, and what we have experienced over the last 4060 culture, and what we have experienced over the last 4060 years, and the connection between that and this issue of representation that people have been fighting for their civil rights, in terms of the laws but there is this other part of representation, a kind of representation of how to be perceived in popular culture. And as i was making the film, the film is waste in many ways is based in many ways on Deborah Willis and her work on black photographers, but i was also very much aware of this other narrative that was going on as well, in which lack people were constructed postslavery and even before the end of slavery, as something other than human. It was part of the marketing of photographs and memorabilia and stereotypes that now would be considered the class a del classe. This is haunting in terms of the way we see ourselves in the way that we see others, and i think people on the streets talking and chanting and asking for demanding or their rights, after the civil rights, in terms of this protesting, the killing of unarmed africanamerican men is somehow being seen men they are somehow seen as demons, like darren brown who was shot in ferguson six times, or as something seen that needs to be taken down, or a certain type of respect for citizens, like eric lerner who was eric garner who was choked to death. With increasing frequency, i think that has to do with perception and the way we see one another, and not only are African Americans perceived as not human or citizen but they are also not necessarily seen as within the family of man, so to speak. So when i was making this film i was very much aware of this idea of the family album, and if we had a National Family album how would we construct that . If we had space and time to do that now, kind of to reconstruct the family album, which is kind of interesting to think about right now, because that family album is rapidly disappearing, in terms of what we grew up with an something that was handed down to us and something that we contributed to this book or these books, you know, it is now a rapidly moving into the space of museums and libraries as we move into a fully digital age. But the i diaz that we as a culture can construct ourselves and the importance of trying to but the idea that we as a culture can construct ourselves and the trying to identify, and because of the diet of negative images brian lamb let me show your oh my gosh bhomage in the film to Deborah Willis. Deborah willis work was centered on ideas that were not necessarily things that people wanted to work with. They were really working on projects that they had ideas on and they wanted to be artists. Deborah willis. Deborah willis. Deborah willis. She started doing all of these shows and cultivating these books and putting it out there for all of the people to see. If it were not for Deborah Willis, we would have probably all disappeared at some point. Brian lamb wishing . Who is she . Thomas allen harris Deborah Willis is a groundbreaking scholar who has written definitive texts on africanamerican contributions to photography she is also an acclaimed artist, professor and chair at the university of New York University department of imaging and photography, she is a friend, a mentor to many, many people, and she is in many ways singlehandedly changing the way in which we look at africanamerican contributions to the field of photography. Brian lamb when did she start . Thomas allen harris she started in the 70s, and she was studying photography and her teacher had told her that there are no African Americans making contributions to photography, so she set her on a path to actually improve this to actually prove this teacher wrong, and she went out to see photographers and resuscitate them, but also to look at the ways in which black families, who were the principal subjects of black photographers, emerged over time. Brian lamb were going to show another clip from your film. Who did you have in your mind that was going to see this . Let me add to that, black people or white people or all of it . As you are doing your work . Thomas allen harris i knew the film was going to be on public television, but i did not know at the time that it would have such a robust theatrical life after sundance, i knew it was going to have a general pbs audience, which in general is a certain demographic, that i did know that i as an artist was charged with creating content for the underserved. For me, that is an africanamerican audience and particularly, i was interested in younger audiences i have a certain amount of education experience, that it took me almost 50 years to understand how to see myself in terms of a Larger MovementPeople Movement of people and to understand the country in a way that one could only understand it by incorporating all of these other pieces, which is the contribution of the hundreds of africanamerican photographers who are taking pictures from the 1840s, 50s, through reconstruction, pictures that were sent to europe to represent the accomplishments of africanamericans 35 years after the emancipation proclamation, throughout the harlem renaissance and the renaissance s that happen all over the country. Africanamerican people were building themselves up way before affirmative action, but there was also this ongoing assault on their images. They somehow were not they were not valuable contributors to society. They were not citizens. I actually approached someone at a french tv station about the film and she was very interested in the film, and she came and studied in america, she is a french woman, as she studied in the 1970s, and she stayed with an italian family in new jersey, and a george and they drove across the George Washington bridge into harlem, and everyone said, lock your doors, lock your doors, and they say, they might drive nice cars but these people dont have plumbing in their houses. So there is this kind of distortion, and who does that serve . And it also belies the fact that many of us are actually related, like my mothers like my grandmothers side of the family, this fluidity between political black, white, or latino. And moving into this new millennium and this world that we have, it is so important for us to not leave any segment of our society and make the segment disposable. You know, we cant afford it. Brian lamb here is and you make this point in your film the Civil Rights Movement is very important after the civil war and during reconstruction, but here is something from your film, and it also focuses on the film birth of a nation that we just featured on another one of our programs. Thomas allen harris this largerthanlife misrepresentation all but obliterated black families who were building themselves up in the aftermath of slavery. Like my grandmothers grandmother, elizabeth, and my grandfathers grandfather, wallace, both from charlton, south carolina. Pictured here in our familys oldest surviving photographs. How do you protect a child . A family . A people . From being branded as the coward . Laziness stupid, shifting to the criminalization of black people. This was the rise of what was called the lack group. Black group. This came as a way of controlling many black peoples. Once photography takes off as a commercial medium for a massmarket audience, you get all of this negative imagery. There is a lot of imagery of activity that was classified as a crime that got black men arrested during jim crow for life. Brian lamb what has been for you is the most interesting reaction to you have seen in say, young black people, when they watch this . Thomas allen harris people cry, people come back and they see this and they see this too and three and four times, people feel validated they feel transformed, their relationship to their own family albums is also transformative. This they all of a sudden realize that the tradition that has been handed from their grandparents has this political social value that they had no idea before. So that is something that has been reoccurring, and in many ways, the way in which we set about the production, in terms of its transmedia aspect, led to this because when we started making this film well i started the film around tenure to go about 2003, 2004, and around 2008, 2009, we developed a digital family reunion. It was supposed to be an online people could upload their family photographs to become a larger family album, and i was very much aware that like me, lots of other africanamericans had photographs in their family that you could not find and the National Archives coming in the library of congress, in popular culture. Sorry, so i started pitching this around, so afterwards, people started coming and doing the room show, inviting people from the public to share their family photographs and the first one he was in atlanta in 2009. One woman came with images from her family that dated back to the 1840s, if followed family as they moved in the 1860s and 1870s and i think up to connecticut and then back down in the 1920s to atlanta, i mean, amazing history. Stuff i had never seen. So we started this road show and we have done it in 23 cities so far collected 8000 images, and now we have an amazing archive, and we were doing a roadshow that is when i realized that a family album is so potent as a narrative to move through the film, and i guess that was why i aspired to be in the film. I was resistant to be in the film, but there is a way in which the movement and the bringing together of people across their differences across different geographic spaces, ringing in photographers scholars also for neck killer photographers, vernacular photographers, it allowed me to tour. Brian lamb how many different people did you interview for this film . Thomas allen harris 52. Brian lamb how many of those are black photographers . Thomas allen harris about half. Brian lamb how did you go about selecting . Thomas allen harris i worked very closely with Deborah Willis, and i work with photographers who had in the last 20 years really moved into the space of fine art. So one had a major retrospective she is the first africanamerican photographer, she had a retrospective at the guggenheim, my brother, who is a will record photographer, a worldrenowned tartar for an artist and younger amazing worldrenowned photographer and artist, and younger, amazing artists, also some othe