Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers: 1840 to the Present

TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

The acclaimed collection of Black photography, now featuring more than one hundred photographs from twenty-first-century artists, fundamentally redefines our understanding of American history.

“If a picture truly is worth a thousand words, then Deborah Willis has given us nothing less than an epic history of Homeric proportions. Taken together, Willis’s magnificent gathering of images accompanied by her powerful narrative overturns many common ideas about black life during the last century and a half, and in so doing rewrites American history.”
—Robin D. G. Kelley, from the Foreword

Originally published in 2000, Reflections in Black was the first single-volume work to collect the images of leading African American photographers—from the daguerreotype to the digital age. Through its sheer power and inherent beauty, Deborah Willis’s groundbreaking assemblage of photographs of African American life from 1840 to the present triumphantly celebrated family, endurance, and spirituality over the last two centuries as it upended stereotypes and rewrote American history.

Aware that so much has changed since 2000, Willis—a world-renowned photographer, curator, and author—has now created a breathtaking twenty-fifth anniversary edition, juxtaposing hundreds of images that appeared in the original edition with 130 new ones.

As the photographic panorama unfolds, we are immersed in hugely moving glimpses of African American life, from the last generation of enslaved people to the urban pioneers of the great migrations of the 1920s, from the rare antebellum daguerreotypes of freemen to the courtly celebrants of the Harlem Renaissance, and from civil rights activists to the postmodern photographic artists of the digital age. Each photograph suggests an astonishing, often spellbinding story.

Reflections in Black features:

• Augustus Washington’s mid-nineteenth-century portraits of key abolitionist figures
• A suite of J. P. Ball photographs of the life, death, and burial of a Black man hanged in the Montana Territory
• James VanDerZee’s iconic shot of Marcus Garvey in a UNIA parade
• Addison N. Scurlock’s dignified portraits of Black intellectuals, artists, and musicians
• John W. Mosley’s WWII-era image of a young drum majorette in a Philadelphia Elks parade

The book includes stunning celebrity images of Booker T. Washington, Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Billie Holiday, Coretta Scott King—now joined by Michelle Obama, the Roots, and Angela Davis.

This new edition features the works of visionary artists like Albert Chong, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lorna Simpson, Allison Janae Hamilton, Renee Cox, Carrie Mae Weems, Andre D. Wagner, and Hank Willis Thomas—photographers who stretch the definition of the medium into conceptual and multimedia art.

Written and curated during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade, these images respond to pain and injustice while celebrating the beauty of Black life.

Exceptionally handsome and historically consequential, Reflections in Black is not only a powerful gift book but also a vital addition to every American’s library—a testament to the enduring legacy of African American photography and the transformative power of visual storytelling.

544 photographs

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