The Photography Project: Taking it to the Streets

Decades of black history reside in Alex Harsley’s 4th Street Photo Gallery, depicted in the master artist’s images from the 1950s to the present day. Harsley, a Southern-born New York staple, provides raw and poignant glimpses into nightlife and street scenes, along with captured moments of celebrities from Muhammad Ali to Nina Simone to Harry Belafonte. His work plays with contrasts, asking viewers to reconsider what they think they know about society. The answers often emerge in sly humor.

Over the years Harsley has had a unique vantage point to document the Black experience in America. He’s survived racially-motivated brutal beatings, endured being drafted into the Army (timed well enough to miss getting sent to Vietnam, he says, but poorly enough to be stuck in Alabama during the height of Civil Rights protest-related violence), and borne witness to more riots than he can count. Yet he’s also achieved some milestones of his own, becoming the first African American photographer for the New York City District Attorney’s office in the 1950s. In 1971 Harsley founded Minority Photographers Inc., an internationally recognized nonprofit which has been responsible for cultivating some of the most innovative women artists and artists of color in recent times, including Dawoud Bey and Cynthia MacAdams.

One can say with certainty that Alex’s work, and that emerging from Minority Photographers Inc., now preserved in his gallery, is the direct result of being part of specific communities, vibrant and vital to American life but hardly understood unless you’re accepted as a member. As a Black artist Harsley’s had access to a network of such semi-secret societies and recorded them in intimate portraits, conveying them both starkly and lovingly as if to tell us years later: “Don’t be afraid of the truth - that’s really the way it was.”

That duality, joyful yet intense, nostalgic yet unsentimental, beats like a heart in every frame.

We asked Harsley to choose a few of his favorite images depicting African American culture; his answers are below. In return, he asks that art enthusiasts and history buffs alike to help keep the 4th Street Photo Gallery alive in a difficult economic climate. Check out his GoFundMe (www. gofundme/4thstreetphoto) so his photography may be appreciated by many generations to come.

The Dom, East Village, 1960s – a hip club “where Harlem met Bohemia”

The Dom, East Village, 1960s - a hip club where “Harlem met Bohemia”: “The Dom went through many different phases after I showed up. The Dom was the Electric Circus, and that was an interesting year of lights and no memory. The party happened; everyone would meet in one place, mainly it was my apartment, and we all went over. All these fears have to be addressed in the Electric Circus, and you hope you come out without going into a mental institution. And then it flipped over to The Dom. The Dom was a place for the next generation: you came to the East Village in order to experience things.”

Children with tire, Queens, 1980s

Children with tire, Queens, 1980s: “That was a project I was working on out in a place called Arverne, on the other side of Rockaway, New York. In the background, you see the burned out houses; I always try to fill things in with a little of that information in the photographs. From an outside point of view it’s bad; from their point of view it’s beautiful. It’s just a matter of what kind of education you’re going to get, when the process is done.”

Shirley Chisolm, the first African American candidate for president, on her campaign with then-Mayor of New York John V. Lindsay, 1972

Shirley Chisolm, the first African American candidate for president, on her campaign with then-Mayor of New York John V. Lindsay, 1972: “She was always that person over there. To me, it was more about being somebody, and what people had to go through to be somebody. So she decided that she needed to run for President. Now you gotta face up to all your adversaries and be confident about who you are, in order to become that.”

Self-portrait, 1960s

Self-portrait, 1960s: “I still had on my army garb; that’s probably 1964-65. I see this guy here, as a Wall Street businessman. That’s his secretary in the background, and he’s sleeping. And she’s doing all the work.”

Ellis Haizlip, the first African American producer in New York public broadcasting, creator of the groundbreaking television show Soul!, 1970s

Ellis Haizlip, the first African American producer in New York public broadcasting, creator of the groundbreaking television show Soul!, 1970s: “That was his brother’s house, with his little niece there. She was so in love with him. Amazing. And he was so in love with her. He had this program called Soul that came on Saturday mornings, with all these different kind of personalities. That was my community, and fortunately, I was able to stay beneath the radar. I can’t imagine somebody dragging me into being famous and what I would have missed out on.”

Miss Black Teen America at Madison Square Garden, 1970s

Miss Black Teen America at Madison Square Garden, 1970s: “She [the model] wasn’t part of that, but yet I fit her into that [ the pageant ]. I knew that sign was there, and I wanted to get her with that sign in the backdrop. People get dressed up and go dancing, to the opera; it’s all part of the New York experience. That’s not to say that’s pro or that’s con; it’s all interrelated. And I’m always recording the overall New York experience, as time went along.”