Friday, Sept. 6, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery kicked off its 2013/14 season with A Stirring Song Sung Heroic: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom, 1619 to 1865, an exhibit of 80 black-and-white silver gelatin prints by Haverford Professor William Earle Williams documenting anonymous, unheralded places across the “New World” where Americans, black and white, determined the meaning of freedom. These photographs—featuring sites of Civil War battles, slave cabins and cemeteries, stops along the Underground Railroad, and present-day historical monuments—help to tell a visual story of American slavery, especially when shown alongside a sampling of Williams’ collection of historical artifacts (books, letters, maps) that he uses to develop and inspire his work.
On Friday night, Williams was on hand, not just to celebrate the show’s opening and the start of a new year in the Gallery, but also to give a talk about his work.
A Stirring Song Sung Heroic will be on view in the Gallery through Oct. 11.
Photos by Peter Tobia.