coolchicksfromhistory:

Photos of African American women and girls from the Exhibition of American Negroes via The Library of Congress.

The Exhibition of American Negroes was a display at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris.  It was designed by three African Americans: Daniel Murray (Assistant Librarian of Congress), Thomas Calloway (lawyer, philanthropist, main organizer of the exhibit), and W.E.B. Dubois.

The exhibit featured photos the achievements of African Americans and included photos from black colleges, churches, and social groups.  The photos above of unidentified women were among those included to show typical “negro” faces.  

The tone of the exhibit was upbeat.  Statistics touted that African Americans had a higher literacy rate than Russians and that African American men had registered 350 patents since 1834.  Anti-black code were detailed, but lynching went unmentioned.  The photos, as demonstrated above, heavily featured lighter skinned individuals, some of whom could pass as of entirely European ancestry.  

Although the exhibit was largely ignored by the white press, it occupied about a fourth of the US’s space at the fair and won numerous awards including the Grand Prix.