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128 12 Visualizing Scriptures Colleen McDannell Let me begin by reciting my proof text. A reading from Vincent Wimbush’s introductory essay: “Such folk generally do not stay within the lines; often they go undetected, uncounted, and unaccounted for. They almost always scramble the generalities by which dominance defines itself and the world.”1 It is thus to “such folks” that I turn. To discuss “such folks”—as we all know—is no simple task. Such folks are everywhere but they are not easily found. They populate our memories but not our textbooks. While it is easy to say that we would like to know the signifying predilections of “such folks,” we’re not sure how to approach the subject. Of course, we could ask them . . . but what if they were . . . dead? The grave certainly slows down their signifying potential. Our core problem is this: we have few representations of “such folks,” especially those who have been silenced by history. One way to resurrect such people so that they can signify again is to look at their pictures. Between 1935 and 1943 around 164,000 photographs were taken of such folk—such folk like the child of migrant workers from Crystal City, Texas, or a traveling preacher from Belle Glade, Florida. The Historical Division of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) took these photographs in order to generate support for New Deal reforms. Historical Division director Roy E. Stryker also wanted to produce a composite picture of American society. So, in the “scripts” he sent out to his photographers, he asked them to include pictures of America’s religious life. These “sociologists with cameras” entered the homes and churches of the poor as well as the middle class. They photographed people in prayer, domestic shrines, dinner graces, parishioners going into their churches, revival meetings, and even the gospel trucks of itinerant preachers. FSA photographers—among them Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks—are now well known in art and history circles. Rather than focus on these photographers, I urge us to use these photographs as evidence of the ways that “such folks” scramble together various ways of representing the “scriptures.” While we scholars often recognize the importance of literacy for such folk, we tend to ignore how they move quickly and effortlessly between textual, visual, and oral representations of key biblical events. In a close-up photograph taken by Russell Lee of a black woman reading, we can see an apt summary of the importance of literacy. Visualizing Scriptures 129 This picture is a beautiful—but conventional—illustration of the intensity of faith as mediated through a book, through the Bible. This is a picture of—dare I say it—“dominant generality.” We are witness to an individual soul appropriating the divine via the text. Alone, she communicates with her God. Here is the classic image of “searching the scriptures.” Every study of “the” black church tells us that such people find solace in the Bible. They remember its words. They caress it like a lover. They embrace books because for so long they were kept from possessing literacy. Sola Scriptura. Viva the Reformation. In another photograph taken moments later we can see a different perspective on the importance of the Bible. The photographer has pulled back and has taken a picture of the context in which the woman is “searching the scriptures.” You can still see her in the middle of this photo. Her Bible now rests on her lap. We now see that she is not alone. The picture shows the final moments of a Sunday school service conducted by a Church of God in Christ congregation. Russell Lee took the photograph on Easter Sunday in 1941, on the south side of Chicago. The congregation was featured in Richard Wright’s book 12 Million Black Voices but was not identified in the text. Indeed, photographer Russell Lee, as well as later historians, has mistakenly referred to it as a Baptist church. In the picture we see how the literary text of the Bible has been transformed into images. The Passion narrative is not only read, recited, and memorized as a series of words; it is looked at. The Resurrection is not only sung about; it is Figure 12.1 Chicago (south side), Illinois; April 1941, Sunday. Reading the Bible in a “storefront ” Baptist church on Easter Sunday. Photograph by Russell Lee. All photographs in this chapter courtesy the Library of Congress. [3.135.202...

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