CBH Talks: Capturing Protest: A Photographer’s Perspective on a Year in the Movement for Black Lives

Join us for a conversation with three photographers who documented the last year of protest in Brooklyn and whose works are now part of CBH’s exhibition Brooklyn Resists. Bob Gore, Madison Swart, and Terrence Jennings joined Brooklyn rallies and marches, turning their gaze and cameras to the history being made. Hear what they saw, learn how they felt, and discover their hopes for the impact of their work in a conversation that explores where the personal and professional meet in documenting the movement for racial justice. Moderated by David Gonzalez, New York Times Lens Blog Co-Editor and Metro Columnist.

This program is part of Center for Brooklyn History's major public history initiative, Brooklyn Resists.

Participants 

Bob Gore has enjoyed long careers in activism, broadcasting and photography. His activism began when he served as a community organizer with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His broadcasting experience ranged from production roles to executive positions in Buffalo and Boston, and in New York where he was station manager of WNYC-TV. There he instituted the first daily primetime schedule of Black programming on a local TV station. He has been a photographer for scores of well-known organizations, including the Schomburg Center, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the New York NAACP. His personal focus is documenting the varieties of African-derived worship in the US and the Caribbean. Gore’s photography has been presented in seven solo exhibitions. His work has been published widely and includes two books, Good News from Haiti: The Work of Bethlehem Ministry, and We've Come This Far: A Photo Journal of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Since 2000, photographer Terrence Jennings has been committed to the image with a singularity of purpose. Schooled with the notion that historical documentation is necessary, his body of work is vast and extends to the worlds of national news, politics, entertainment, event coverage, photographic art and the African American experience with a lean towards emphasizing social justice photographic coverage and our right to control the narratives that determine our collective futures.Influenced through the works and conversations with the likes of Roy DeCarava, Beuford Smith, Ozier Muhammad, Carrie Mae Weems, Adger Cowans, Leroy Henderson, Ming Smith, Dr. Deborah Willis, Jules Allen, Joseph Rodriguez, Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Jamel Shabazz, his work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Public Library, the New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center, New York University and Harvard University and various other organizations. He is a recent new member of the photographic collective, Kamoinge and the founding curator of the award winning photographic talk series, Visually Speaking!

Madison Swart (She/They) is a non-binary photographer and activist who is dedicated to fighting for Black Trans Liberation. Originally from California, but currently based in New York City, she started documenting protests and demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd and has been out on the streets of New York ever since. Madison’s thought-provoking work has been featured online by Cosmopolitan and Out Magazine as well as others. She has been unlearning, learning and growing with The Stonewall Protests led by Qween Jean and Joel Rivera, two Black Trans Activists who preach to LEAD WITH LOVE above all else.

Moderator David Gonzalez’s 30-year career at The New York Times has seen him cover a range of stories and beats: co-editor of the “Lens” blog, Bronx bureau chief, Metro religion reporter and “About New York” columnist, and bureau chief for Central America and the Caribbean. In 2020 David took on a new role at the Times’ Metro department as a visual reporter, which combines his passion for on-the-ground reporting and his experience with photography. He also recently returned to his photography roots as a founding member of Los Seis del Sur, a collective of Nuyorican photographers who documented the South Bronx in the 1980s.