Elementary, dear Scurlock

Remind me not to go to anything on the Mall on a weekend. I guess I've been pretty spoiled by the smaller museums I've visited and also by the low volume of weekday visitors. Having taken a sick day yesterday, today MAD went to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Maybe not one of its busier days, but it was way too crowded for me.

Whatever. The exhibit I saw The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington - Picturing the Promise - was just terrific. The Scurlocks were THE photographers of black Washington DC from the time Addison set up his studio in 1911 until the last son in the business closed it down in 1994. This exhibit is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Museum of American History and the National African-American Museum of History and Culture - which will open its own building on the Mall in 2015. You can be sure that MAD will visit there.

Scurlock was known for portraits of middle- and upper middle-class families as well as luminaries. Also the official photographer of Howard University for many years. And son Robert was also a photojournalist, shooting with a camera from his studio at U and 9th during the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., when much of the shooting was being done with guns.

My DC home is very near the corner of New Hampshire and U; many of the street photographs were taken quite nearby and seeing them reminded me of the not very long-ago history of the neighborhood. Who was living in my house during those years?

The husband of MAD joined me today and after the Smithsonian we went to Politics and Prose to hear Lonnie Bunch - director of the NMAAHC, Michelle Delaney, Paul Gardullo and Jacquelyn D. Serwer talk about the meaning of Preserving the Promise and sign copies of the book. Gardullo told the story of meeting Dorothy Height and her recollections of the events shown in a particular picture. Serwer spoke of a day she spent in Highland Beach (instead of in school) when visiting her cousins - a memory evoked by the photograph of a group of young girls at the Beach. The are hoping to be able to identify many of the anonymous subjects of the photographs and to hear their stories as well. Fortunately for us and the community, the Scarlock collection was acquired in 1997 by the Archives Center in the American History Museum. So take a look at some of these 4000 photos that can be viewed online. Maybe you'll see some one you know.