About the Project
Harlem South: A View Through the Lens is a performance experience that explores the social, historical and cultural significance of photographs by Richard Samuel Roberts. A self-trained photographer, Roberts unwittingly documented the rising black middle class in Columbia, South Carolina between the years of 1920 to 1936. By day, Roberts was a full-time Post Office custodian. It was his side gig as a portrait photographer that led him to produce a prodigious body of work. Over a sixteen-year period, Roberts took over 10,000 photographs in Columbia, which was a regional hub for textile manufacturing with a booming population. It wasn’t until 1976, forty years after his death, that 3,000 of these prints were discovered underneath the Roberts’ home. These photographs offer the unique perspective of the hopes and dreams of those aspiring and already affluent blacks in the twentieth-century Jim Crow South.
Not much is known about a number of Roberts’ subjects, but it can be assumed that each led a unique and beautifully complex life, revealed through their dress and posture. In this sense, they seemed to codify a history that was spoken of but of which very little was actually known. Outside of their portraits, these were people who live in a segregated community. However, within the portraits we see educators, domestics, preachers, war veterans, and factory workers— a survey of individuals whom all appear to be building lives for themselves and families.
Harlem South re-examines and celebrates ten of the subjects featured in his photographs. The multimedia performance will explore personal stories, American history and culture through spoken word, original music compositions, and visual media. We invite you, the audience, to join us in journeying back to a time of intense challenge and change. We invite you into a studio that documents these dynamics. Welcome to the Roberts Studio.
Production Team
