Let Your Motto Be Resistance

Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits explores the history of African American achievement from the mid-nineteenth century to the present through the changing roles of photographic portraiture. The photographs, many by noted photographers and portraying distinguished subjects, establish a sense of place and identity and explore both aesthetic and vernacular styles. Among the subjects are such luminaries as actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson; trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis; legendary singer Nat "King" Cole; performing artist Eartha Kitt; opera legend Marian Anderson; jazz pioneer Louis Armstrong; vocalist Sarah Vaughn; choreographer and dancer Judith Jamison; and Harlem Renaissance poet and writer Langston Hughes. The exhibition includes portraits produced by both well-known photographers such as Berenice Abbott, James VanDerZee, Edward Weston, Gordon Parks, Irving Penn, Carl Van Vechten, and lesser-known or anonymous photographers. This exhibition, organized by curator and photographer Deborah Willis, will inaugurate the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, and will feature eighty-six works drawn exclusively from the collections of the National Portrait Gallery. The International Center of Photography was the opening venue for the exhibition.