Lincoln University is displaying a selection of 55,000 historic black-and-white photographs by international photojournalist and foreign service officer Griffith Davis, writes Lynette Hazelton for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Before his death in 1993, Davis documented some of the most influential figures from the U.S. civil rights and African independence movements.
His daughter, determined to keep his memory from fading, has spent the past three decades preserving his photographs and organizing exhibitions, including Lincoln University: Through the Lens of Griff Davis, on view through May 3.
The exhibit on the university’s main campus highlights Davis’s photographs and correspondence with four prominent Lincoln University alumni, including Langston Hughes, a leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance, Thurgood Marshall, the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice, Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first president of Ghana, and Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Nigeria.
Founded in 1854, Lincoln is the first degree-granting Historically Black College and University in the United States.
“These men were in touch with each other and supporting each other,” said Dorothy Davis. “My dad knew them as people. Through his photographs and letters, he supported them.”
Read more about the exhibit showcasing the historic of photojournalist Griff Davis in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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