Thoughts on Unseen: Unpublished Black History

On Friday the 29th, I had the opportunity to attend Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the NYT Archives. The room was packed and the event organizers had to keep bringing in more chairs for the attendees of the event. It was exciting to see that so many members of the Barnard community were interested in learning more about Black history.

One thing that I found surprising was that photography was not always an important component of the New York Times. In fact, it wasn’t until recently that photography was seen as deserving of space in the paper. The images that were commonly placed in the NYT were ads. This is frustrating because photojournalism is a moving and inspiring way to tell stories and it’s sad that the opportunity to utilize photos as a form of storytelling was often ignored by the NYT.

One of the writers of Unseen: Unpublished Black History said the book was about “who wasn’t there” when stories were being told. She said that the book explored what the New York Times chose to cover or not cover and why.

I wonder why the NYT didn’t believe that these photos were worth publishing when they were taken. If they didn’t think that these photos were worth publishing, why were they taken in the first place?

One of my favorite stories discussed at the event was the story of Lena Horne. Lena Horne was a Black singer, actress, and dancer. Horne had trouble finding an apartment in the city because she was Black. Her good friend Harry Belafonte, who was a Black musician, was also having a difficult time getting an apartment in the city. As a result, Belafonte decided to send his white publicist to rent an apartment for him. When the owners found out Belafonte was Black, they refused to give him the apartment. Furious, Belafonte decided to secretly buy the entire building and give Lena Horne a penthouse in the building. This story is so beautiful and inspiring because I don’t always hear stories about Black people winning.

This story is one of the many that was hidden in the NYT archives and is now being brought back to life by this book. It’s sad that these inspiring stories were hidden for so long. More importantly, it’s frustrating to think about how Americans consuming the news were missing important elements of the stories they were reading about, simply because these images were never printed.

A photo of Lena Horne in her apartment.