TAMPA, Fla. — When the wonder of words meets the power of pictures, the results can be captivating.
For years, the daughter of trailblazing photographer, Griffith Davis, has been building an exhibit showcasing the bond between her father and prominent Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes.
10News reporter Emerald Morrow sat down with Davis’ daughter, Dorothy, at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts to discuss how the friendship and what we can all learn from the two men’s bond.
Note: This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Reporter Emerald Morrow: Dorothy, tell us about your father.
Dorothy Davis: My father was Griffiths J. Davis. He was a pioneer, photographer, journalist and U.S. Foreign Service Officer. He was the first roving editor for Ebony Magazine at the recommendation of Langston Hughes to John Johnson, publisher and founder of Ebony Magazine. He also was the only African American student in the class of 1949 of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism while he lived with Langston Hughes. In his Harlem home, and he became the only African American international freelance photojournalist for Black Star for about three years and filed stories from Africa.
Reporter: How did your father meet Langston Hughes?
Davis: He loved Langston Hughes. He was his buddy. He started as his professor. My dad had just come back from World War II and he was finishing his degree at Morehouse College. This is the spring of 1947. And Langston Hughes was the visiting professor to Atlanta University at the time and just for that semester. My dad took his (English) course, and he was also the campus photographer. So, Langston Hughes knew he had somebody who could go with him to various activities that he was attending in on campus and in Atlanta itself, as well as professional shots that he needed. He was his professor, and then he became essentially his mentor.
Reporter: They eventually became good friends. Talk about how that happened.
Davis: Langston invited him to rent a room out of his Harlem home while he was attending Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and my father was the only African American in the class of ‘49. And, he would go to school and then in the evenings when Langston is going out on his assignments around New York, he would take my dad as the photographer, and he would, my dad would photograph whatever the subject matter was. And then they would submit it for potential publishing. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it did not work. But lucky for us, we have the photographs.
Reporter: There are lots of photos in this exhibit that the public has never seen. Talk us through what we’ll see.
Davis: Ten years ago, I found I realized that I had like a body of materials that really spelled a story or told a story about their relationship, and that was mainly through their letters. And also, I realized that he had taken these different photographs that he himself had said had never been shown.
In those photographs, you get a sense of the time, the era, how people dressed, how they seem to act, the decor, that kind of thing.
The way I organized it was to start essentially where their friendship started. And so that's with being in the classroom. It starts with a welcoming reception that was held in honor of Langston Hughes arriving on Atlanta University's campus.
Reporter: Your father took an iconic photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ant Richard Nixon that is on display. Tell us the story behind that picture.
Davis: My dad was a boyhood friend of Martin Luther King and they went to college at the same time, which was Morehouse College. And they stayed friends until Martin Luther King died.
At the time that my dad took that photograph, he was a foreign service officer, and we were ending our tour in Liberia. He was asked by the U.S. Information Service headquarters, which is Washington DC, to basically go with Vice President Richard Nixon and his U.S. delegation to Ghana's independence, which was March 6, 1957.
So, he went and I'm not so sure he knew that Martin Luther King was actually going to be there, but he, he was one of 20 official photographers for Ghana’s independence. And, it turns out that Richard Nixon and Martin Luther King and their respective wives Coretta Scott King, and Patricia Nixon, were at a reception related to this Ghana's independence. It wasn't planned. Kwame Nkrumah, who was the founding father of Ghana, had invited Martin Luther King and his wife to come to the celebration. I don't think Nixon thought he was going to meet Martin Luther King there.
So, I believe that Nkrumah used his platform of having this celebration as a way to bring people together who would never under normal circumstances, been able to come together. Meanwhile, my father as an African American Foreign Service officer was in a strange spot.
He had witnessed, obviously, the issues of racial segregation in Atlanta. And obviously, he witnessed it with Martin Luther King since they knew each other from that point. But in the State Department, he actually was freer working in Africa than he was in the US.
For me, that picture is a combination of freedoms. It's a combination of kind of becoming independent. It's a combination of Martin Luther King, witnessing freedom and being inspired by it for his mission in life in terms of the Civil Rights movement in the US. And for my dad, he did it for his job, and for the historical moment, but I think it was also a sense of hope of what could happen going forward in the US.
Reporter: What do you want people to get from this exhibit?
Davis: I want to break stereotypes, basically. And I feel like [Hughes and my father] did that just by living their lives. I see them as two African American men who became friends and who supported each other in reaching their respective dreams. And that they did that in spite of really difficult times Jim Crow was going on here in the states.
Griff Davis and Langston Hughes, Letters and Photographs 1947 – 1967: A Global Friendship, is viewable at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts from January 17 – April 19, 2020.
Emerald Morrow is a reporter with 10News WTSP. Like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter. You can also email her at emorrow@wtsp.com.
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