Forget Me Not

Archival photographs of everyday Black Americans from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Curated by Kimberly Annece Henderson.

Modeled after the popular Instagram project @emalineandthem, these digitized photographs immerse the viewer in the visual histories of everyday Black Americans. The original photographs – some over one hundred years old – are preserved at collecting institutions across America, and beautifully illustrate the breadth of the Black experience that transcends time.

The inspiration for this work is revealed in a note from the curator, Kimberly Annece Henderson: "On my mother's side, I gasped when I found an American Revolutionary War pension record for one of many great grandfathers way back when. On my father’s side, my stomach sank at the sight of an 1866 Freedmen's Bureau contract for the guaranteed servitude of another. In piecing together different narratives for their lives, perhaps my existence is the poetic device here."