MEMPHIS.- The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art presents today Photographs from the Memphis World, 1949-1964, on view through January 5, 2009 and curated by Chief Curator Marina Pacini. Exhibition Sponsors: The State of Tennessee, The Assisi Foundation of Memphis, Inc. and the Tennessee Arts Commission. The Memphis World, an African American newspaper published from 1931 to 1973, chronicled the complexity and variety of its readers’ lives. The paper covered politics, education, religion, social organizations, the arts, civil rights, business, and sports. In marked contrast with the reporting in white newspapers, the World, like many black newspapers, celebrated the accomplishments and challenges of the city’s diverse population. The articles were illustrated with photographs by Ernest Withers, Mark Stansbury, Hooks Brothers Photography, and R. Earl Williams, among others. The images range from expected subjects, such as Thurgood Marshall’s visit to talk about civil rights and business leaders breaking ground on housing developments, to women’s organizations taking disadvantaged youth to the opera. Behind the seemingly ordinary images is evidence of the courage, dignity, and ingenuity that citizens brought to bear on the living conditions in the Jim Crow South.

Nineteen additional photographs will be on view at the Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College from September 5 through October 4, 2008. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. Organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.