Emory University has just acquired the Robert Langmuir African-American Collection. The Langmuir collection is a 12,000-image record of black culture from the mid-1800’s to the early 1960’s.
The remarkable note about this collection is that black photographers took most of the photographs featuring racist scenes with blatant threats.
Among the photos in the Langmuir collection is work by Arthur Bedou, Booker T. Washington's personal photographer. Also included were photos by Diane Arbus (a white photographer) of an early traveling black Carnival in Times Square. The Arbus photos have been valued between $20,000- $60,000 each. Other photos taken within the collection include those by less famous photographers, who simply snapped the photographs representing blacks life during segregation, and during both good and bad times in history.
