Image by Denise Stephanie Hewitt (DPI, Class of 2024)
Theory celebrates Black History Month With Dr. Deborah Willis.
Black educators from New York's leading cultural institutions curate course materials for their dream syllabi. Read more about their professional journeys, the mission of their work, and their commitment to highlighting Black stories well beyond the month of February.
“I had a difficult professor who said I was taking up a good man’s place,” she reveals. “‘All you're going to do,’ he said pointing to me in a classroom of 18 men and 3 women, ‘is get married and get pregnant.’ But that silenced me in a way that pushed me forward.” With encouragement from photography history professor Anne Tucker, Willis began researching Black photographers who were missing from her textbooks. In tracing their contributions to American photography from 1840 to 1940, Willis set the tone for her prolific career. A historian, curator, and recipient of countless awards and honors, she is also the author of 28 photography books that share Black photographic history outside of prevailing stereotypes.
“I remember what it meant to be shut down in the classroom,” she says, “So I want my classes to be a circle of encouragement.” Each semester, Willis reiterates the power of storytelling, encouraging students to translate their lives through photographic work. “Growing up, I used to sit in the hall and listen to the stories that the women told in my mom’s beauty shop,” she recalls. “They were the best storytellers. It was therapy for them. There’s something cathartic about visually articulating your story.”