“I, TOO SING AMERICA” CASSANDRA GRIFFEN EXHIBITION OPENING

Cassandra Griffen is a nationally known Civil Rights Movement documentarian. Her photographs are powerful revelations of the journey of individuals and communities of color during her 30 years of intense documentations of civil unrest and cultural challenge. My images expose the individual’s hidden self.  I am curious of what lies behind their eyes; where they have been; and where they hope to go.  My images evoke the passage of time.

Serving as Human Rights commissioner of a New State Commission taught me that racism was still a factor and this revelation impacted her passion to the underserved and overlooked.

In 2014 she was honored with the Joan Mitchell Creative Artist Living Legacy (CALL) award intended to map out my legacy. Receiving the William H. Johnson Prize would allow her to complete the tasks of digitizing and printing numerous rolls of unprocessed film, slides and negatives, neglected by the Legacy Specialists that would allow her stories to unfold. Documenting the complicated lifestyles, exposing the dirty truth about life in the south and its relentless refusal to offer a quality of life to all is encapsulated by the power of her images.