Digitizing the Extended Family

(This story appeared in High Performance #67, Fall 1994.)

Image by Dorita Marie Roberts, Afro-American Genealogical and Historical Society of Chicago (AAGHSC) member, and Scottie Kersta-Wilson, digital collaborator .

"One day in July 1993 I drove the red clay roads of Alabama that were layered with tales of others that came before me," said Cynt Grover of her geneological research in the deep South. "It was quite an experience to walk the soil and listen to the stories my cousin Juanita told me as we trampled on weeds and held back fallen tree branches. I gathered rocks where my mother once played, and my cousin Bessie gave me enough red clay to fill a large mason jar from where an old oak tree once stood. On my great-great grandma Cornelia's land I beheld the once fruitful pecan trees from which pecans were picked and sent in burlap bags to my mother."

Cynt Grover is part of "Extended Family," a project linking African-American geneology and history with photography. The project is being developed in Chicago by members of the Afro-American Genealogical and Historical Society of Chicago (AAGHSC), artist Esther Parada, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Working with Univeristy of Illinois student Jilla Rafizadeh, Cynt has created an image in which heirloom photographs of her ancestors are inserted into a map of Alabama. Across the entire page, a photo of Cynt's African great-great-great grandmother Adeline Curry has been scanned. The mysterious process of seeking self-knowledge through family history is reflected in Cynt Grover's contribution to "Extended Family."

The American family, and in particular the African-American family, is pivotal to a raging cultural debate on the state of the American union. The issues of that debate — morality, politics, religion and economics — are all linked to the family. It is rare for African Americans to research, articulate and visualize their own family histories. For this reason, "Extended Family" is of special interest.

AAGHSC, founded in 1979, is a not-for-profit organization with more than 200 members who research African-American family history. Thirteen members of AAGHSC began "Extended Family" in the fall of 1993. Coordinated by Esther Parada, Professor of Photography at the University of Illinois at Chicago, it is a collaborative project that will result in the publication of a book or portfolio including digitized photomontages and narrative family histories of AAGHSC members.

Collaborative projects are often plagued by imbalances between participants. "Extended Family" has succeeded in putting together people and organizations who need just what the other has to offer. The University of Illinois at Chicago has an abundance of resources — not only a digital computer lab, but students and teachers who are anxious to bring their own knowledge and skills to a project that is meant to establish rich relationships between communities in Chicago and to make visible the lost histories of African-American peoples. The Afro-American Genealogical and Historical Society has a strong and motivated membership that has achieved nationally recognized research into African-American history. A balanced combination of these resources orchestrated by Esther Parada has resulted in a project in which personal investment is rewarded.

Betty Craft is a retired Chicago public schoolteacher who has been a member of AAGHSC since 1984. For "Extended Family," she has portrayed her great grandfather, Henry Miller Craft, in a manner that raises issues of naming in African-American history. Betty's narrative tells of Henry's purchase by an Alabamian named Frank Dillard. Apparently Mr. Dillard had a son who was also named Henry, so he blithely changed the name of his slave from Henry to "Paddy." When in 1865 Paddy/Henry ran away to join the U.S. Colored Infantry, his name was changed again — recorded as "Pat Dilet." Betty Craft tells of the difficulty this history of arbitrary name-changing caused Mr. Craft when, in his later years, he applied for a pension. Such difficulties continued to mark the complex path of Betty's genealogical research.

"This project is important because it can serve to combat stereotypes by telling the individual stories of African Americans," says Dr. Philip Royster, Director of the African-American Cultural Center in Chicago and "Extended Family" project participant. Several of the individual stories focus on a family member who is a role model. Muriel Wilson tells of her Aunt Mabel, a successful businesswoman who practiced law, sold real estate, ran an antique shop and the Alabama Pit Bar-B-Q and Sandwich Shop in Chicago. Mary Louise Wallace-Thompson tells of Rosa Lee Ingsby-Wallace, a mother who "created her own cottage industry and was able to buy a piano — the only one in the neighborhood — a Victrola, and music lessons for herself and her children." Dorita Marie Roberts has created an image in which five generations of women are united on the front porch of an ancestral home — something that could only become visible through the technique of digital manipulation and a collaborative project such as "Extended Family."

"This project has been the perfect marriage of past with present, old photographs with history through technology," says Dorita Marie Roberts. "Now we all have a chance to write our story, visualize our history and live from one generation to the next."

Joyce Fernandes is an independent curator and writer living in Chicago.

The Extended Family project can now be found on the Web at: http://tigger.uic.edu/~e-parada/AAGHSC/

Original CAN/API publication: December 1999