In our highly digitized worlds, photographs and archives are tools for us to remain rooted in our past as we move forward through the present. These photos were taken in Baltimore by I. Henry Phillips Sr. circa 1950. They gift us with familiar moments of Black holiday revelry and joy. Going through these images, I couldn’t help but conjure up in my mind symbols and scenes of holiday celebrations that I experienced growing up.
The I. Henry Photo Project is a digital archive of images made by three generations of Webster men. This selection of images was curated from a virtual studio visit with the I. Henry Photo Project Archive, facilitated by I.H. Webster III, a visual artist and archivist. Webster started the archive with his father, the late I. Henry Phillips Jr., who was the Baltimore Sun’s first Black news photographer and the son of the late I. Henry Phillips Sr., a photographer at the Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper. (Teri Henderson)
