Black Joy, in Spite of. . . - Frist Art Museum

Through a selection of historical imagery paired with art of the present day, guest curator Brigette Janea Jones, a historian, non-profit executive, and speaker, offers a more three-dimensional picture of the Black American experience by focusing on moments of joy despite a history of pain and struggle. The exhibition showcases photographs of enslaved people and their descendants taken throughout the three geographical regions of Tennessee during various periods, including enslavement, Reconstruction, the civil rights era, the crack era, and more.

Jones invites students at Tennessee’s HBCUs and public universities to submit responses to these images with their own interpretations of Black people resisting harm and embarking upon the eternal journey to Black joy. Working with a community jury, Jones will select ten of the students’ works for the exhibition. Black Joy, In Spite Of will show Black Tennesseans having the audacity to be happy amid and in the aftermath of an institution that was designed to break them.

Supported in part by our

O’Keeffe Circle

Presented in part by

Frist Foundation, Metro Arts, Tennessee Arts Commission, and National Endowment for the Arts logos

Exhibition gallery

Sepia tone photograph of three young Black boys dressed in overalls and hats and smiling at the camera.

Unknown photographer. Three Boys (Unidentified) at Belle Meade Plantation,
ca. 1865. Courtesy of the archives at Belle Meade Historic Site and Winery

Two Black twin boys singing exuberantly into a microphone

Ernest C. Withers. The WDIA Twins, 1948. Courtesy of the Withers Family Trust. © Dr. Ernest C. Withers, Sr

Old black and white photograph of two women dressed up and looking solemn with two younger children in dresses posing for the camera.

W.F. Griffin. Ida B. Wells, standing left, with Maurine Moss, widow of Tom Moss, lynched in Memphis March 9, 1892, with Tom Moss Jr., ca. 1894. Courtesy of University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center

African American children of varying ages playing and riding bikes and scooters and men are sitting on the front porch of a housing complex.

Joy Johnson. College Hill Courts, Chattanooga, TN, 1980s. Color photograph. Courtesy of resident Joy Johnson

Black family standing outside their old wood house eating watermelon

Unknown photographer. Unidentified family in front of a cabin eating watermelon, ca. 1865. Courtesy of the archives at Belle Meade Historic Site and Winery

Three Black boys playing with a basketball on a grass lawn with a plastic bin attached to a fence acting as a basket.

Brad Vest. Michael Key, 8, left, Kanard Miller, 6, center, and Donovan Coleman Jr., 11, play basketball on the fence that surrounds Foote Homes, Memphis TN, 2016. © The Commercial Appeal – USA TODAY NETWORK

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