In our family, my aunt Burnette was the designated photographer. Or at least that was what I thought when, as a child, I’d page through the family photo albums at her home. Her beautiful portraits—of my cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and great-grandparents in southeastern Wisconsin—captured silly faces, warm cuddles, flawless stunting. She documented the fact of us.
Photographs by Julien JamesThis past Saturday, after a one-year hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic, more than 50,000 spectators filled the Camping World football stadium in Orlando to watch the Florida Classic—the 76th face-off between Florida A&M University and Bethune-Cookman University.
Photographs by Terry AdkinsThis article was published online on December 12, 2020.What you are looking at is the afterlife of memories.Memory jugs were funerary objects found in the South on the graves of African Americans through the mid‑20th century. These small stoneware vessels were adorned with fragments—broken china, glass shards—and items beloved by the departed. The ritual is said to have its origins in Central Africa’s Bakongo culture.