Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White (review)

Calvin Littlejohn was a photographer in Fort Worth, Texas, who documented the black community for more than forty years, between the 1940s to the early 1990s. Littlejohn's mission in becoming a photographer was to represent and celebrate the richness and complexity of black culture in the segregated South.

Author Bob Ray Sanders begins with a biography of Littlejohn. Originally from rural Arkansas, Littlejohn grew up under his grandparents' care and was shaped by his grandfather's connections to East Texas. Littlejohn's first job was in domestic service with a local white family that paid him enough to cover tuition at Philander Smith College in Little Rock where he studied commercial art. With a natural aptitude for drawing and visual arts, Littlejohn took an additional job at a photography studio inscribing names and titles for the photos. He was mentored by the local photographer about cameras, lighting, and use of shadows. He moved to Fort Worth when his employers decided to relocate to Texas in 1934. Littlejohn continued with domestic service positions but eventually accepted a job with the Fort Worth school district, teaching in the industrial arts department. He soon became the first photographer for the only black high school in town, I. M. Terrell. Littlejohn shot images for the school newspaper and yearbook, and he quickly opened his own studio in his home and helped to establish a black newspaper, the Como Monitor. Littlejohn was a very active photographer in the thriving Fort Worth black community, and to keep up with the demand of his schedule, he invented the Plantation Printer, which allowed him to expose 46-millimeter film, five frames at a time.

Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White is organized into six sections with both black-and-white and color photographs that represent six major subjects: schools, businesses, community and social events, churches, sports and entertainment, and world leaders. The first four sections of the book focus mainly on Fort Worth's black community, with images of senior proms, football games, family portraits, birthday parties, social gatherings, local businesses, and funeral processions. These are strong, compelling portraits of children, adults, and families that attest to Littlejohn's ability to capture the people of Fort Worth.

In addition to his Fort Worth-based work, Littlejohn also took images of sports figures, celebrities, and world leaders who traveled to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Janet Jackson, Thurgood Marshall, Harry S. Truman, and Jackie Robinson, among many others. While these images reveal Littlejohn's success and range as a commercial photographer, it is the images of ordinary people from the Fort Worth community that provide the most depth and interest.