Lynn Marshall Linnemeier Presentation, JCP Summer Institute, 1991 July 02
-
Download
- Rights
- Files (2)
-
MP3
Part 1
-
MP3
Part 2
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
- Share
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| Speaker 1 | Two year period with a joint project at the Center for Documentary Studies has been involved with, together with the Center of Southern Culture in Jackson, Mississippi, and the Master Ation Department of Jackson State university in Jackson entitled a Mississippi Self Portrait which will subsequently be traveling exhibit, | 0:01 |
| Speaker 1 | (laugh), we're waiting, but it will be, it will be on a traveling exhibit. And will uh, much of this will also be published through a book by the University of North Carolina Press. Lynn is a Lyndhurst former Lyndhurst fellow as well. And she is not involved in the very, in a new project called Old South New South Photo Photo documentary project on 25th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1955. So we were very, very pleased to have her here from Atlanta on this quick one day trip because she has to get back to paint a mural this afternoon on the on the walls of, of, of Atlanta. So thank you very much for being— | 0:25 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Thank you. I apologize for the delay. Of course, I got lost. It failed when this campus place is massive. I am a freelance photographer. I'm also a painter and a sculpt. And I was born and raised not too far from here about 70 miles from here in Newtown called Southern Times North Carolina. But for the past 17 years, I've lived in Atlanta, Georgia. I was a student at the Atlanta College of Art when I began working on Mississippi self portrait. And as was said, it's a collaborative, collaborative effort between Duke University Center documentary studies, the center of the Study of Southern Culture and Ole Miss, and the Mass Communications Department of Jackson State University. The goal of the project is to collect the photographs and oral histories of African Americans in the state of Mississippi to form what will become a unique archive to be housed at Jackson State and Ole Miss. | 1:05 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | And as we say in book is to come forth at the completion of the project and also a tool. My job as the project director and field worker is to travel around the state of Mississippi visiting with families there and rephotograph or, or copying the photographs that are handled in the collection. Today, I'm going to address just a little bit of the the technical aspects of the project. And I'll also share with you some of my personal experience. I've been asked to demonstrate how the copy work is actually done. And this is unfortunate because this is the least interesting part of the project for me. I like sitting and talking with people. I, I'm not much of a technician and I generally do the copy work after I've done the interview. That's when I'm, you know, ushered into a room by myself and I sit there and I do the actual copy work. | 2:11 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Most people that I visit know that this is the technical part, and they generally leave me alone. So I, i sort of feel alienated when I get to this part, and this is the part I know why. But but since I was asked to that, I'm gonna briefly discuss a little bit of the al aspects. I'm assuming that that this audience does not consist of photographers, and if so, I'm not gonna go through the language of photographers, which can be quite confusing. I'm sure you all are not interested in f stops expansion and qualities of film and the whole nine yards. It can be very confusing. If you are a photographer and you are interested in doing a project of this type, I suggest that you get the Kodak book on coffee work and practice with family photographs, just like I did when I started out. | 3:18 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | If you are, if you are considering a project of, of any kind that deals with photography, I think it's very important that you employ a person who at least has a basic working knowledge of the craft of photography to pull someone in off the street. If they don't know if photography even get too much done, it would take, you know, them learning the craft in order to you know, in order to complete your project. So be sure if you're gonna do something like this to make sure you get somewhere that has at least a face working on. I began a project using this camera. It's an Nikon F two camera. It's fitted with a, it is a 35 millimeter camera. It spit it with a 55 millimeter macro macro lens. The macro lens was designed especially for closeup work. | 4:09 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | In other words, I can get as close as maybe two inches on a photograph. So if I have something that's very small, it's easy for me to, to get in on it and, and focus and, and make the shot. Now, if you go into your local store and you buy a camera kit, you usually get a 50 millimeter lens with the camera. That lens will not do because you cannot get close enough on the photograph to actually do the copy work. You can buy what's called extension rings. You can also use a pho lens. But what happens when you use those lenses, the quality goes down. So if you're concerned with quality, then, and you're gonna do a project like this plan on forking out three or $400 for for macro lens. In order to copy the photographs, the cameras attached to a copy stand. | 4:59 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | And I drove this thing around all over Mississippi at the beginning of the project. It fitted, it's in, it came in that box right there. And me in that box traveled all for the first part of the project. We traveled all over the state, and really, I set the thing up just like this. When I go into someone's house to copy the work, it was usually on the floor. I was on my knees in a corner doing the copy work. This thing moves up and down. These lights come on, your picture is placed down here, and, you know, basically you can just move your lights around to adjust them whichever way you want them to go. I'm sure most of you are familiar with 35 millimeter, because that's what you, that's the camera that most people have. The negative is about one and a quarter inches long. | 5:50 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | So it's a very tiny negative. It's about like that. Now, what happened what happens when you go and pick up your photographs from the drug store? They usually apply, you know, they're clear and they measure around three by five inches. But if you've ever had a photograph blown up from a 35 millimeter negative, you notice something happens. The photograph deteriorates, the image quality actually deteriorates. It's not the fault of the photo lab, it's the fact that you're using a small negative, which is blown up. So when you blow it up, you get grain and distortion. So it's not as clear because of that. We switched to a four by five format. The negative actually measures four by five inches. So you go from a negative this size to a negative this size. Therefore, when you blow it up, you get a clear picture. | 6:37 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | This is not the actual camera that we use. This is my, my own personal camera. And I'm sure you've seen these before. If you don't watch westerns and the guy puts the black cloth over his head and the thing goes off. But this is basically the same camera. The one that I, that we use for the project weighs about 30 pounds when it's in its casing. I just simply was not in the mood after, in the sun (laugh) day before yesterday to drag all the equipment up In addition to the 30 pound camera, I also travel with this tripod. I have two low lights, which come with stands that I use. These lights have 500 watt bulbs in each lamp. So when I go in someone's house and I get all this stuff, stuff set up and turn the lights on, it looks like the house has been, you know, attacked by the bomb. | 7:26 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Usually most of the neighbors come over to see what's going on. 'cause there's this globe coming out of an apartment. When we switched to four by five, this stand was not strong enough to hold the other camera. And the stand that was needed to hold the other camera was too big to fit in the car. It would've been, it would've taken up most of the space in the car. So my husband rigged me up this pole light device, and I've attached a copy board to that and travel around, like over in the car. That's basically the technical part of it. To get more into it, I would have to you know, you would really have to know how to take a light reading and all the other technical jargon that photographers employ in order to come up with a good photograph. | 8:19 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | So I'm, that's why I said I just wanted to briefly talk about that. And now I want to talk a little bit about what I've been doing down there. As I said before, it is important to choose an individual who is dedicated. If you're gonna do a project like this, you have to have someone who's really into what they're doing. There must be some sense of purpose for that person. They must feel that what they are doing or what they're documenting is of utmost importance, not only to them, but to the people that they will work with. And that the result of the project benefit kind in some way. Now, I believe from the beginning that this project was important in all three categories. And my cameras and I travel all over the state including the big city of Jackson, Mississippi. | 9:13 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Each time that I enter, I'm virtually unknown. I'm usually referred to a particular place by someone from another town. And you might say, I traveled by work. Not as I said before, I'm not from Mississippi. In fact, I had only set foot in the state one time before I went there to work on this project. And I was passing through going to New Orleans, and I stopped in Hattiesburg to get something to eat. That was it. So I knew no one down me. Now, I've always been a curious person. My mother called me nosy. So when the center asked if I would act Aspi worker on the project, I really jumped at the chance to go. 'cause I've always wanted to go to Mississippi. I had heard about, and growing up in southern past North Carolina, I had seen on television the racist backlash of Whites in the sixties. | 10:04 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | And quite frankly, I was wondering what was happening now that the civil rights movement was over what was actually happening in Mississippi. On the other hand, I felt that there was something very rich and very positive to be found in the state. And there would be something there that would connect me even more to myself. I had just come from rural South Carolina. I was documenting some relatives of mine who were very poor in that state. But after having been down there with them, I found, I don't wanna romanticize it and, and try to make it look like they had it so well. 'cause these people were extremely poor. But there was something about them where they seemed more at peace with themselves. Even though they did not have all, all the modern things that that I considered to make life easier. | 11:00 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | They, they seemed to be all giving. They were all welcoming. And they were very loving. When you walk into the community, everybody came to give you food. It was that type thing. And I hadn't even seen that since I was a child. Now, I was teased before I went down there. I was warned before I went to Mississippi, take a gun with you when you go down there. That was one thing I was talking, don't drive at night. And then I was also, it is like going back in time. It's just like going back to the 1930s. This prepared me for Mississippi. And what made it so bad? I went to see Mississippi burning before I went. So that made it even better. But the whole time I thought to myself, surely Mississippi must have changed in some way. And after having worked in Mississippi, it's hard for me to contain myself when I talk about the people that I've met there. | 11:56 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | And I'm always encouraging people to visit the state of Mississippi always. And I did find exactly what I found in rural South Carolina. Just very, very kind, very loving people who have you know, I just benefited greatly. And today we must have some 2000 negatives for the archives. The images range from little girls in ruffle Easter dresses on Sunday to big girls and promo gowns. We have photographs of pageants, of baptisms, birthday parties. The photographs that I found there have served to confirm my belief in the universal nature of man. And have made me proud to know that during a time when life in Mississippi was extremely hard and still is considering the high rate of poverty in that state, but Africans, African-Americans in that state refused to be consumed by hate. And they managed to eck out some semblance of normal life despite everything that they faced there. | 12:49 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | But after all, we all did. It happened in the little town of Southern Pine, North Carolina, where I grew up. And the small towns in Mississippi were no different. I cannot count the actual number of photographs that I've actually looked at in the course of this project. The process of selection is based on intuition and the immediacy of the moment captured within that photographic space, as well as some memory that has been jarred in my mind. For instance, the reason why there's so many cop photographs of little girls in dresses is 'cause I remember the vocal dress that I had when I was a little girl. And I got for Easter, and it was young and had puff sleeves, and it had rubs around the bottom. And I thought I was the cutest thing in the world. So every time I see little girls in local dresses, that memory comes back. I see that. So I copy the poster. We have a lot of photos. | 13:54 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Now you might ask, how did I get started on this project? Especially since I knew no, well, I had one contact person in Santo in Mississippi. Michael, captain he's on the board of Alderman in Santo. And I was introduced to him by Beth Boyd, who was then administrative, the program. Michael very graciously escorted me around town and introduced me to many of the families that lived there. And and including his own family, which was his, his grandfather was 84 years old. That has changed my life forever. Last week, two days ago, I was working on a wall mural in Atlanta in the sun 90 degree heat sweating. And all I could see was Mr. Cathy on his tractor in the sun, 90 degree heat, 84 years old. And he's going up and down the roads, me doing his corn. | 14:49 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | 'cause it didn't come up right the first time. So the man changed my life. I mean, I, I complain about stuff, but I always think, you know, wonderful. Would Mr. Kathy think, you know, if he knew he had to do this job, how would he feel about it? And he would do it. You know, he has a passion for that. The same way I have a passion for photography, for photography. So I connected it that way. But the enthusiasm that I found in Santo was something else. The families there, everyone was eager to share their photographs and their stories. And I'm not gonna get into the stories today 'cause the stories are a whole different aspect. That's a whole different part of the project. I've been asked to deal with photographs I won't get into the stories of, but they shared stories of sharecropping teaching, raising families, gardening. | 15:45 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | And you know, I admit that my enthusiasm in pro in the project also helped. Now I've always been a whistle, and my belief in one world makes it easier for me to, makes it easy for me to talk and listen to just about anybody. I had to stop walking my dogs around the block in my neighborhood because what began is a 15 minute walk turned into a two hour walk because I'd stopped and talked to my neighbors in the meantime. So I had to stop doing that. But from San Toby, I went to Jackson. And with the help of Dar Saunders, who has been administrator of the mass communications department at Jackson State University introduced me to many people all over the city. Educators you name it. Anybody. She seemed to know everyone. And her encouragement and interest in the project that's been invaluable. | 16:31 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | She knew historians, doctors, and plain old folk. I even interviewed Doris's roofing contractor, Mr. Har, who was genetically White, but spiritually African American. This story is fascinating 'cause it, it, it, it just demonstrates just the diversity of, of race and race relations in the states. And Mr. Haring's father was quiet. His mother was white and American Indian. But Mr. Haring grew up in an African-American community. Now, his mother, when, when after he, after I guess he was around three or four years old, his mother married a Black man. And this, what, this is what put him in the African American community. He had, well, by the time I met him, he was eighty four. He had gray hair and blue eyes. But I would not have told that man that he was not genetically Black. No way. Because this is the way that he was raised. | 17:22 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | He boasted about his Boy Scout troop and how he threatened to walk out on Boy Scout jamboree because the Whites were trying to separate his boys from the rest of the activities. And he threatened to walk out. He was also, he talked about how he was given easier jobs when he was doing construction work, because Whites were very afraid that because he was so light that he wouldn't be able to carry the steel beams that his dock brothers had carried. And he fought for the right to carry those steel beams, it or not. And he was very proud of it. But after winning that riot, he was constantly called a white nigga. And this is, this is the thing. They, they labeled him as that. So he was 84 years old when I interviewed him. And he died about six months after the interview. | 18:29 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | I sat on my front porch and I cried. Not so much because of Mr. Herring's death, 'cause I know death is certain, but because I had been given the gift of his presence only for a day, the gift of sitting with him as he, as he discussed his life and his pride in his work and his children, which brings me to another point concerning our elderly citizens. They are fleeting fast. They're going fast. I've had two people that have died so far since I've worked on this project. And each time it just tears me apart because they have such rich stories to tell us and something they're not captured right now. We are losing our history. It's, it's going right before our eyes. That's what I'm seeing now. After I visited Jackson, I traveled to Lexington, Herman Natchez, Shelbyburg, you name it. I was all over the state. | 19:25 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | And each time I was referred to by another family. And Shaw met Tom Rankin for the second time, he's a photographer and the director of the art department at Delta State University. He introduced me to several families in Shaw and he suggested that I contact Mr. [inaudible] Mound body. This the story of the year called up Mr. Crow. Mr. Crow agreed to see you that afternoon. I arrived in Mount Bayou, Mississippi. And I don't know if any of you know about Mount Bayou, but if you don't, please, you gotta read this place as fascinating. I arrived at the Crow's Nest, that's Mr. Crow's place, businesses right at the intersection, highway 61 and nothing. And it's a combination Greyhound bus station and restaurant. So I'm walking to the place and I introduced, introduced myself to Lake behind this counter. You know, she's looking at me like, you know, who are you? | 20:17 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Her name is Eunice. We later became very good friends. And Mr. Crow was sitting behind the counter hidden by a candy shell. He was back. In fact, he comes out, he's kind of, he's a large man. He's falling gray hair, very timid smile. And I explained the project to him. So he says, oh yes, I, I think we have a few things that you might [inaudible]. Now briefly. The town of Moba was founded in 1887 by Isaiah t Montgomery. It was the result of the cessation by the state of Mississippi to the LNO and T Railway Company of more than a million acres of land, which formed the delta section of the state. In order to clear the land, the LNO and t railroad solicited the help of the Negroes of the state in exchange for in Mo by case Land. | 21:09 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Montgomery himself was the ex-slave of Joe Davis, Jefferson Davis's brother (laugh) and Montgomery's personal history is fascinating as his experiences on the Davis plantation was a result of a social experiment, which was derived from the theory that slaves would work harder if they would give him some degree of self-determination. So if you have a chance to just study Montgomery's life, his life is just would absolutely, it just absolutely blew me away. The town was set on 40 square miles of magnificent agricultural territory and his ap hood, one of the founding fathers wrote and the Negro at Mount Bayou. This book is not available anywhere. I've got a Xerox copy of it. Mound Bayou stands for the first move of any considerable proportions made with the view to ascertaining by concrete experiment. Just what to be the effect of segregation of an appreciable body of Negroes with the power of municipal government left absolutely free to do as they will, and subject only to and amenable alone to the law of the commonwealth. | 22:01 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | An incredible feat. The town prospered at one time. It boasted an oil mill, a cotton gin, a college, a kindergarten, a bank sawmills, blacksmith shops, it's own bottling companies, towns, and just a host of other businesses. In other words, this town was totally self-sufficient. And that is an incredible feat for African Americans. At that time, I was totally mesmerized by the history and what impressed me most was that the town was still there, not in its form of glory, but it was still there. I sat around the crow's nest for several hours and just enjoyed everything. People were parading in and out, and there's a storyteller with everyone that comes in. Somebody sits down there every so beer, they tell the story. So I was in heaven. We finally left after Mr. Crow got off from work and went over to his house. When I walked into his living room, I was surrounded by his China and crystal and antique cabinets and photographs covered every available space in his house. | 23:13 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | He took me through the house pointing to islands of particular interest, telling me about his family and how they came to my body. And we sat down to a giant oak table in his living room. He changes his decor every week, by the way we go in on any given week, it changed (laugh). And Mr. Pro left into the kitchen. Now he's in the kitchen working. You goes, oh, by the way, that chair that you're sitting in came from Madam CJ Walker's house. Do you know about her? And I jumped up (laugh). | 24:25 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | So this is some of the things that he had in his house. I was almost afraid to sit back down Mr. Crow came from the kitchen. He had an ice bucket, two glasses and a bottle of water. I didn't feel so, I thought we might have a little refreshment while we talk (laugh). He began to run me through all these papers and things. And finally he pulled out several photograph albums, big box. And he goes, I have a few things here that you might be interested in [inaudible]. And I will never forget that day because I sat there and turned the pages in that photograph album. And it was like I was seeing history just unfold before my very eyes. Not only did he have documentation of his family's history, but he also had photographs from other families in Mount Bayou because he is considered the town's historian. And people know that they can trust him to hold onto the keepsakes. Or if someone dies and there's no air, they'll give it to him. And he preserves 'em, he holds onto 'em. Well, we sat there until three o'clock in the morning and I was staying in Cleveland, a hotel in Cleveland needed. Needless to say, I did not leave the house last night. Mr. Suppose you can't drive at 3:00 AM you know, which is stupid. We had polished off about a room (laugh). | 25:04 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | So he gave me, gave me what has become my room. That's where I stay in my room. And that room is reserved for me. Of course, other people come through, they can stay in there, but units would generally let me know if someone is staying in my room. (laugh). But but I have what is, what, what is called my room now. And I do have a lot of rooms. I have a room at Doris Saunders's house. When I go visit her, I have my room and the whole project is coming, has turned into a thing where I have rooms all over Mississippi. And that's a wonderful field to have. Now I'm gonna show you just a few of the photographs that I've copied from Mr. Crow's collection and a few of the photographs that I've copied in Jackson. I'm sorry, I don't mean to tantalize you. | 26:37 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | I am so sorry, but I have to tell you, this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the collection. And they happen to be my favorite. So they're really not the best photographs that I could have chosen. But I picked these, 'cause these are some of my favorite ones. Now, some of 'em were taken by Mrs. Grove's, aunt Maddie Thompson, who was a affectionately called gold there. I fell in love with Goldie. 'cause Goldie's word changed my life. Goldie was a documentarian in every sense of the word. Not only did she photograph everything around her, but she wrote on the photographs. And this is what changed my word, her writing. I was very afraid to alter the photographs. When I became a photographer. It was almost like it was a sacred object for me. And I would, you know, and people kept telling me, well, you should write, you should write. | 27:31 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | And I wouldn't do that. But when I saw her work and how she wrote on those photographs, I have done some things to photographs that you wouldn't believe. And I've got some of them in the tray, which is come up last. In addition to being a photographer, Goldie was also a fortune tower. She was Madam Mariska Duncan for a while. (laugh), she was also a teacher. She founded a school at [inaudible]. And I have a photograph at the school that she founded, and eventually she was a sort of a missionary because her son was cured by a traveling preacher. He supposedly had cap polio and her son was cured by a preacher. Some golden sort of took him up and, you know, kind of helped him along with his mission. So I'm gonna show you a few of those things. And in addition, I'm gonna show you some photographs from the series that I did called Sanctuary which is about [inaudible] and about the state of Mississippi. | 28:23 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | And I think what happened in the series is it's really kinda autobiographical. It's about me. I go to this place and I fall in love with this place. It's about a young prince. I the prince. And I can't leave there. My father's told me favor, no kingdom above any other. But of course, me being the prince, I go to this place and these people just give me sugar, cotton. All the other provinces have shouted all these precious gifts on me. But I get to this one place and they don't have a whole lot to offer. So the young prince keeps going back there. He can't get away. Like, I can't get away from my body. I keep going back over and over again. And finally he calls this genius, genius, says, well, you know, you, I can't answer the question. You need to go see the aged one. | 29:26 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | He's the only one. But in order to get to him, you're gonna have to go three gates. Guard it by three gardens. So he manages to answer the littles of each guardian at the gate. And he makes it to the agent one. And the agent one tells him what you have found in sanctuary safe place. And that is essentially what I found in that little town. And it is not only me, because there are other people that don't amount by it for some reason, they can't figure out why, what it is about that town with nobody there, except for the people that grew up there, one or two businesses. Why is it that we keep coming back here? (laugh). Now I think part of it is, you know, just the history. So I'm gonna show you, I pray that these are not upside down. I put these things in rush. So we are gonna stick, but I'm gonna show you just a few of the photographs on first. I | 30:12 |
| Speaker 3 | You | 31:26 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Gotta do it on, you gotta | 31:26 |
| Speaker 4 | Good smile. Oh, yes, | 31:27 |
| Speaker 3 | (laugh). | 31:32 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | There we go. Okay, this is Goldie. This is an actual, actual photograph of Goldie. Mr. Crow's on. It's taken in 1937. Everybody going back, huh? She visa. Everybody going back. It could be, it could be. I don't know. | 31:38 |
| Speaker 3 | The car. | 31:58 |
| Speaker 4 | See the car, (laugh). | 31:59 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | I mean, you can tell it's quiet down D Lady. There's, this is CT from Louise, Mississippi. Go only took this photograph. And as I said there I got, there's a story about CT that I have on tape. Mr. Crow talks about ct, but I can't remember the story. And I'm sorry. I heard so many stories about these photographs that it's hard for me to remember what story goes with what person. I just remember that there was a story about ct in Louise. | 32:02 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | This is a, a scene of some of the horses farm animals taken in Rosedale, Mississippi in 1923. This is also Goldies. You can see she likes the dating. She likes to put little dates on the photographs. Sometimes she writes little comments, huh? Real. Yeah. (laugh). I do that all the time. Now this is one of the photographs in the collection. We don't, this belongs to another family. These are people obviously on vacation in Colorado somewhere. But the (laugh), do you have a date for that? We do not have a date for that one. I would imagine from the close, that is probably the turn of the century, unless they of course dressed up like that. But I don't think so. | 32:33 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | It could be Mr. Second (laugh). Do they have a I was, okay. The reason why I said Colorado, because the case that it was in had Colorado on the back of it. It may have. Yeah. So that's why I'm thinking that they were probably from Mississippi to travel for vacation. We have some strange rocks down (laugh). Now this is, this is this is one of those photographs of of the school at Pace. And you can read what she says. Mrs. No, the, the church where school was being held. These are some of the founders of, of a Rosenwald consolidate school. Mrs. Mario Thompson, Goldie, principal and founder. A dream or a prayer that was answered in less than one year. She has a dollar sign beside, yeah, too white. This was one of her signatures. This is the way Goldie signed her photographs. The ones that, that she didn't sign all of 'em, but if they signed by her, she puts a snap by Goldie. And I just love that. That did something to me when I saw that. | 33:23 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | This is Alti, this is Mr. Crow's mother alti Crow. And Goldie has written on their own arrival from Chicago in front of Mama's House, snapped by Goldie. And that was 1943 [inaudible]. Mr. Crow's mother was was very in. Well, both Mr. Crow's mother, they both were very instrumental in the civil rights movement. She just did a number of things. Just, just a wonderful woman. She died. She's, she's dead now. She's dead when I got there. But every time I see pictures of her, I just want to know her. You know, she's that type of woman. Mr. Po got photographs of Fannie Lou Hamer, or you name it, all the Civil Rights League came through Mount Bayou and they came to his house. So they're all documented in photographs. This is one of, this has gotta be the, my most favorite photograph outta the whole collection that I've seen so far. | 34:33 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | The reason why I like this photograph so much is because everybody in this picture, with the exception of the mother, appears to be in a dream. It's like the mother is looking affectionately at the kids, but they're not anywhere in the room. The thoughts are someplace else. And it is just, you know, if a photographer set it up, which I think he did, it's just an incredible photograph to actually sit there and set that up. And it looks like it was taken in their house. But we don't know who this family is. It's one of those other things. We don't know who they're, this is one of a baby and I just thought it was such a beautiful baby. I mean, what can you say? There are baby pictures in there. Baby pictures. So this is just morning girl. I have no idea. There's so many (laugh), there's so many photographs that just don't have anything on 'em. And you simply copy them because they're beautiful. Yes, sir. You | 35:33 |
| Speaker 5 | Go back to the previous slide, Uhhuh, that looks like the front porch. See the lines coming down behind the heads | 36:32 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Uhhuh, those | 36:40 |
| Speaker 5 | Are board strips. Cover the joints on the board. Rough boards coming down. | 36:40 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | I don't know because in the original it does. | 36:46 |
| Speaker 5 | It got, yeah, | 36:51 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | I think it's the way in the original photograph, the way the light is coming in from the, it looks like it's coming in from the side of the other, it looks like it's streaming through that window. This photograph also has had somebody put glue on this photograph company with glue (laugh). I don't know what they were trying to do, but there's glue all over the photograph. So those smears that you see in there is actually glue from the, from the original. And by the way, a lot of it, a lot these things have lost quality. 'cause they're actually slides of copies that I had. So I didn't copy the original. I copied the copy that I had. So each time you copy something, the more you copy it, you lose detail every time you | 36:57 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Okay, this one is not from bin. This is Mrs. Hurley Kaufman when she was five years old. And this was a teacher. She was a teacher in San Toia, Mississippi. This woman was something else. (laugh), I think she talked for like 31 years or 30 some odd years in Stoia. And she just very frankly told me when I was over there, she's a very nice lady. But I was just starting out. So I wasn't very fast when I started doing this. And this Ms. Coffee just told me, look, honey, you're taking up too much of my time. You. | 37:50 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | So, but she was a wonderful woman. I went back to see LA and she's really sweet. (laugh). I'm much faster now. (laugh) (laugh). This is Michael Cathy's grandfather in the middle with the handoff. And this is, he, they rolled, I mean, this is what they did. They, they participated in these cattle, I mean horse competitions and stuff. And the photograph is very deteriorated. That's Mr. Cathy. And the reason why I like this 'cause it reminded Mr. Me and Mr. Cathy now with his hand on his hip. You know, I mean he's just, I have a story about him that, that I just told a couple of weeks ago. When I did sort of do something like this about Mr. Cathy and him being on his tractor and so on. He reminded me of that with a horse. He's a very feisty eight, four year old man. | 38:28 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | He's probably the I told him he was the youngest man that I'd ever met in my life. That's how well we got around. This is miss Beauty Camp is his wife's parents. And I just love, I love Miss [inaudible]. Miss Beauty, when I met her was in the y in her yard, in her garden, which was one acre of land. That was her garden. You know, she was out the child, you know, and I'm like, Ms. Beauty outta the garden. Mine is about 18 by 20 feet. You know, this lady is 65 years old in the heat. And I said, how can you skate stand here in the heat? She had a hat on, you know, she was just chopping. She says, you get used to it. That's why I said, when I worked on that wall, I just kept my mouth shut. | 39:21 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | I put my hat on my shades and just kept my mouth kept work. Had plenty of this is actually Ms. Hernia coffin's mother. And I love this picture. The original photograph, if you can kind of see it on this. But in the back in the window, there's a woman peeking out and she's standing there with her books and it says late. So obviously she's, you know, you can make up all sorts of stories about these photographs. You know, maybe she was, was she late because she still to take the photograph? Or was she just late for school or, you know, what was going on? Where was that date? Know? That was taken in Santo, I think back in that photograph off, yeah. It Snow. Mm-hmm. . Oh, it snows in Mississippi. Yeah, I was down there. I made a snowman in Mr. Qua. Yeah, the kids just laughed at me. | 40:04 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Okay. This is from a serious sanctuary, which is what I was telling you about some of my work. And this is the young colleague. These are, these are illuminated photographs. I paint directly on the photograph to create a whole different environment. I really haven't planned on showing you this, but I started talking to Iris about, and I told her I'd throw these in here. (laugh). This is the Jeanie. And he, you know, it's, well, he can read the text and he can't read it. Okay? It says, now I ask him a question that I cannot answer. Old master thou should ask of the agent. One who he's wise and has a knowledge of many things. And Harvey had he commanded the genie when he and the Azio found themselves on the land, which they could not have conjured even in their wildest dreams. I have an exhibit of these things, not this series, but another series will be at the Han Museum in Atlanta. Beginning in October the guardians Jean had promised Po Cori disappointed that it should not enjoy the colleagues company throughout all eternity just stepped aside and let them pass. So there were three questions, and this is the first garden. | 40:57 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | The spirit of the second gate is more terrifying an aspect than the first. That's a gravestone from the cemetery at Mount Miami that forms the photograph in that the guardian of the third gate was the most terrifying, as opposed the final question of the young K. And that's me (laugh). I am the guardian of the third gate. Somewhere in the midst of this is sanctuary at the age of one. And the aging one is actually Charles Singleton, who is purported to be 125 years old. That's what his family told me. He was supposed to be born on March 11th, 1865. Now they call him the doctor. We all know what that means. So I won't go into that any further. I'm not gonna question it. I will not question Mr. I'll not question Mr. Signatures aid. The young colleague moved his capital to the land of bva and well, they inhabit his full remainder of his life. So that's the end of the sanctuary. | 42:18 |
| Speaker 3 | That's it. | 43:19 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | What are | 43:20 |
| Speaker 5 | You actually painting | 43:20 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | On? What time? I'm actually painting on the photograph. | 43:21 |
| Speaker 3 | Whose photographs? | 43:24 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | The photographs you took for the photographs. These, these are photographs that I made in Mississippi while I was down there. That's actually a church that's in the center in not once from Marial, Mississippi. It's actually a church. And I just go in and paint out what I don't want. It makes it easy 'cause you can make lots of mistakes and I don't have to worry about scratches and stuff like that on the there. I just paint out. So you actually, | 43:26 |
| Speaker 5 | You actually have a photograph that, that may cover the entire page that you cut, but you paint over the top of | 43:50 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | The photograph. Yeah, you can Right. Want, right. In this case, I just printed a tea, tiny little photograph on a piece to be left by 14 paper. Mm-hmm. And painted it out. In this one, | 43:56 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | In this one, the first one. There's actually another person that was in that photograph. I painted that out. He's black paint. I've seen out what I don't want. I positioned him on the paper the way that I wanted him and came up with that. So that's, that's essentially how they're doing. But you can create all sorts of fantasies. I don't have the ones I just worked with some kids in a program in Atlanta for the Man's House, which is a ministry. These are kids who could have been in trouble with the law previously, bad kids stealing cars and stuff. But I showed them this and it's amazing the effect that this has on children. And they were. | 44:16 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | A karate man. I don't do negative images of African Americans for children. There are no bad guys. I do that. | 0:01 |
| Speaker 2 | Would you share with us how it felt going from, from North Carolina, Mississippi and being accept before I always teach about the [indistinct] of the African American experiences of American people, and that once you get matter where you go, you are always a child that [indistinct] as long as you come and your intentions are good and you express that change once you got there, things were as, as you said, they were even wonderfully different also. | 0:12 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Right? Right. They were. And I think that, I think that that's one of the things that I do. Anytime I go into a community, I try to go into the community wanting to know something or wanting to learn. And I think that if you have, you have to have a, a sort of, and inquisitive, you have to be humble. I think that's a good word. You have to be humble. You can't go into anybody's community thinking that you know everything that you, you know, and you just have to be downright friendly when you go in there. You can't go in with an attitude. ou can't go in like, you know, I'm from Atlanta and I know everything. ecause you are dealing with people that are very, you know, you're dealing with people that are 80, 90 years old. These people know more. I mean, you know, I'm only 37 for crying out loud (laugh), you know, they've lived many more years than I have and they know a lot. So when I know, I know to learn, you know, | 0:42 |
| Speaker 2 | I was my next question that you wrote to a, the practical earth coach, they have to, to life. | 1:31 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Yeah. I think for me it was like going back to my childhood. 'cause like I said, sometimes is not a big town. It's a very small town. When I grew up, our house is here. My uncle's house was here, another uncle here, and my grandmother was over here, aunt on the hill. We took up the whole square block, we had the whole block cover. So that, you know, I mean, it was just that sense of family. And this is one thing that I found down there, that sense of family. ou know, a lot of people say that the family is disintegrating. I'm hearing all these negative things about the African American family and African American family life. But even I've been, you know, the past two weeks I've been in two of the roughest projects in Atlanta working in working with kids in a recreation program. | 1:38 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | And I saw one day I saw at the end of the program, we made little art books with photographs in it. But at the end of the program it was me and two musicians that were working. The kids liked change classes. So at the end of the program, we gave like a presentation for the whole camp. I looked up and folks Mamas was coming in 'cause we set no tone to let them know that we were gonna do this program. One grandmother came in in a wheelchair pushed by a man who was, you know, obviously an alcoholic. I mean, you could tell him in his face, but he was struggling to get her in that gym and to seat her so she could see that program. And these are the positive things that I see that are in the African American community that are not being that are not being tapped or not being even, you know, I mean, you get negative. | 2:27 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | That's all you getting. You get, I mean, lots and lots of stories of crack heads and crack dealers and crack this and crack there. But what about that grandmother that's in there? And what about those, those ladies that are in enterprise that still have the gardens there that sit on their porches in the evening and tell those stories. What about that that's an aspect of, you know, of the African American community? I think because of press mainly, you know, you get a lot of negative press that that people are really, you know, focusing on that and not a lot on, you know, you just don't hear about a lot of positive stuff. But I think that the fam you know, in that respect, I think the family is, is still there. There's, there's aspects of that that's still there that I'm not sure if we are really, you know, | 3:23 |
| Speaker 2 | Well, you know, I had never thought I, I really view that there's too much hype on the negative aspects of what happens in the African American community. But by the same token, until I listen community, I never considered having a project to go into and have someone from our various institution do photography projects to counter the height. And I think this is rural people have welcomed you. Urban people also are responsive to welcome you. And that's | 4:05 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Advantage. I have one, as a matter of fact, one with many 999 million other things. I'm gonna be working, my, the gallery that actually handles my work in Atlanta is in the reynoldstown section of Atlanta, which is like southeast Atlanta. I've had galleries from Uptown Peachtree and so on, and have called me and asked me, you know, can, can we represent you? And I flat out said no, 'cause I was in Littletown. My theory is, you know, why do I have to get in my car and drive up to Peachtree, you know, to go see my work when I live on southeast side. So I use a gallery. I use a gallery that's in Rosetown. I have a project that's coming up supposedly this month while going and actually document the Reynoldstown community with which is abundance. I mean, there are a lot of elderly people in there as well as a lot of young kids. And they have a lot of just real good community programs that are going on. So I do plan on doing | 4:34 |
| Speaker 3 | That. Yeah. I go back to discussion at the beginning of technical aspects. Sure. Family photographs. Sure. or for someone who is going, you have oral history, you know, do interviews or interviews and bring along a camera, is it possible, my question, is it possible to achieve the goal of documenting photographs in someone's you know, albums without bringing someone along who has the technical expertise that you mentioned? Is it possible to get to that point in terms of just having a third car at the camera with the special lens? Or would you really have to actually bring somebody along with you every time? | 5:27 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | No, you wouldn't. So the, the lens you need to have, but you need to have a macro lens. You really have to have, yeah. Yeah. You need to have, you can have a 35 millimeter, let me let you look at this thing. | 6:22 |
| Speaker 3 | And would you need all the lights? | 6:35 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Yeah. You need to, you need to have some kind of way of lighting whatever it is that you're gonna do. 'cause you, what you're after is, is decent image quality. But you can look through this, you know how to this camera you can get, you can focus it, you can put your hand and, and just keep focusing. You can see how close that lens will, will get on a photograph. So you have to have a macro lens. You can use a telephoto lens, but it's really not going to work your pho lens. You are gonna lose quality. You really need a macro or a four by five. What is Mr. Cross's first name? Mill? What? Mil? Yeah, mil Cross just said the mound value. Mr. Sigman Lydia is the postmaster. She will make she (laugh) person. Okay. | 6:37 |
| Speaker 4 | I wanna follow up on questions about the special land—I'm in the state archive . And I wanna shoot some photographs from the governor's file from 1921. And I have this particular account with the lady. Now how am I gonna accomplish this in this public facility? | 7:30 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Yeah, I understand. I'm saying probably the best thing to do if you're gonna do something like that. If you could if they have something like a bulletin board, if you, you are just mainly interested in getting the stuff documented or, I mean, what, what is it gonna be used? I won't, is it gonna be used for a specific purpose or is it Yeah, | 7:53 |
| Speaker 4 | We're gonna publish | 8:10 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | It. Oh, okay. If it's in the state archive, they should have copy of facilities in the state archive allow you to Huh? Damage the photograph. Oh, I'm not, I'm not even sure. I, I better not touch that one. 'cause a lot of this stuff is also on microfilm. You know, which is what I'm thinking in | 8:10 |
| Speaker 5 | Some, in, some are, like in, in North Carolina, if you've had something like that, they have a whole photographic section. Right. That they would, they would take it at a fairly, I mean, stuff that I've ever had done there. They do it a fairly reason, you know, a few dollars, a four or $5 a shot, they make a negative, give you a negative and a print. But they have a special staff that has all this equipment and they, you know, they'll go, you tell 'em where it is in the governor's papers and they'll go get it and everywhere. It may not be like that, but I think usually you can make arrangements. | 8:32 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | The only experience I've had with that was the Vanish and Georgia exhibit in Atlanta. And I went down to the archive and, you know, they have like a card catalog file of, of various photographs. So I just wanted you, what you do is you go in, you pick out a photograph that you want and you give it to 'em and they actually make you a copy of the photograph and mail it to you. So, but I don't know how you would, you know, would actually get a copy of, can you send your photo, any of your photographs? Do you sell any of No, my personal, my personal photographs, Uhhuh ones I took and painted on, of course, (laugh). Of course. | 9:06 |
| Speaker 6 | Why was Mississippi Miss special reason Mississippi was told for the project? | 9:46 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | I think because of Mississippi's history, I think because of Mississippi's violent history. I, I | 9:50 |
| Speaker 6 | Think, I think so I do. I I do for last five years. Five. I mean, it is beautiful 'cause I've had a little experience for the last five years I've done a revival in Heart Spring, Mississippi. And one of the things that, you know, and I don't, I go mainly for what I can receive from the people. | 9:54 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Right. | 10:13 |
| Speaker 6 | And one of the things they do, they do the come and meet him. The long meeting | 10:14 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Him. Right. | 10:18 |
| Speaker 6 | You know, I can tell 'em. | 10:19 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Well see, that's what, that's, | 10:20 |
| Speaker 6 | I haven't heard that kind thing. | 10:22 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | I was about to say that's the world. But I was about to say that not only Mississippi's history, but also the fact that, I mean, there's so much down there. I mean, it is, the traditions are very intact. I mean, if, you know, it's, I mean the juke houses are there, your blues is there. I mean, for crying loud, Mississippi is a birthplace. The question | 10:23 |
| Speaker 6 | I really raised, I guess the historian can help. Why is it different from Alabama? I mean, you have something that's different. | 10:44 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Yeah. I'll just say that. Sounds like, that sounds like something for a history for we discuss that and historian's | 10:55 |
| Speaker 6 | Interesting. Just interested. Why would you choose Mississippi? But I think it's a good choice. Yeah. By the way. | 11:03 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | But yeah, but I think, I think that it has a lot to do with the, the the, the, not only its history of violence, but the the fact that people, you know, like as I said, they endured, they really endured. And the traditions that are there, the, the family traditions that are there are still, you know, very much intact. Yeah. | 11:07 |
| Cynthia Woods | My name is Cynthia Woods and I with the Mississippi statewide survey. And you and my field surveyor Wilson, | 11:27 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Yes. We won't talk about Wilson. | 11:35 |
| Cynthia Woods | Are at the same places, essentially doing the same thing. And some of my concerns, I talked to Alex briefly about it, and perhaps, you know, I should meet with you individually. But archivists and photographer is subject their work to interpretation and editing and in order to get the aesthetic, but also what I consider to be an archivally appropriate statement and representation of the document. | 11:40 |
| Cynthia Woods | Now I'm looking for—you're saying you're looking for the photo, I'm looking for the total experience, the photo the story. You know, all of that, that and that oral documentation, the total aspect of it. And we have been weeded out often because of, of the, what we call objectivity of researchers and scholars. And what we are trying to do is bring all of that back into focus in a positive sense. And I, I just have concerns because I, when I talked to Wilson, he would, he would say, well this is good and you know, this looks pretty, but then I have this, this picture that's distorted, that shows this family you know, in the house in the kitchen or cooking or doing some things that tells, you know, another story but it, it doesn't look pretty, you know? | 12:10 |
| Cynthia Woods | Right. Right. So I want to pick up on all of that. Yeah. We need to, we were talking about trying to work closer together, but we are overwhelmed in terms of the level of surveys. And in terms of the fact that you said you had two people to die. Well, I've had 12 people to die within the last year. And it takes a part of you when you, you know, you work with people, a lot of history dies with 'em. Yeah. And, and the records. | 13:05 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Yeah. It's a, it is a, it is a, it is a problem you know, to be dealt with. And I, you know, I don't know, I'm just, | 13:35 |
| Cynthia Woods | I shared with our, when you were there, some photographs that we had found in an attic that someone had just sent to us. And since then people have brought in boxes and we'll find some gems in them. And some of the dates are, you know, 18 62 18. And it's, it's really something to touch these and touch these lines. | 13:44 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | One thing to remember too, that if you have original photographs like that, especially if the photographs are African Americans are very valuable because they're not a lot, there are a lot of photographs that exist back. Lemme put to you this way. I've been in flea markets, you know, 'cause I do the flea market circuit. Anytime you have a photograph of an African American early, early photograph of African American, they generally sell for much more than someone else in that time period. 'cause we just didn't have, you know, we didn't have access to those cameras. So, | 14:07 |
| Cynthia Woods | Alright. | 14:37 |
| Speaker 8 | I put this plug in that you all want to know why Mississippi, | 14:37 |
| Cynthia Woods | The book | 14:43 |
| Speaker 8 | Mississippi Black History Bank, university, p Mississippi, you all can get a copy of Book Montgomery and Father who was the first Black judge and also an inventor and fan. So [indistinct] from University President Mississippi. I wish I had some | 14:45 |
| Cynthia Woods | Mention another reason Mississippi is so strong in the institutions. I think we're so strong when we talk about the Jim Crow era and the need to turn within and to develop your schools, your churches, your businesses. So we've had some strong businesses in Mississippi, and you look at the poverty there, but you look at the thousands of success stories and you go to Mississippi and most people are surprised that Blacks have been able to overcome within the confines of Jim Crow. And I've always say that one of my things is empowering the Black community, documenting the pride. And when you document pride to do that as a part of Jim Crow. | 15:05 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | One thing that I found, you know, one thing that really amazed me, 'cause like I said, I'm from Southern Pines and by the time I came along, my grandfather had, well, grandfather owned on one side of the family that allegedly had a lot of land, which they lost. I mean, that's a common story on African Americans. And my grandfather had a lot of land which our family which he had sold by the time I was born, just have a small, you know, small plots of it. But one thing I found in Mississippi was just a large number of African Americans that owned land and that still farmland. And I remember the first time I saw first time I saw a black guy he was on a, on a tractor (laugh) with a cowboy hat on. And it tripped me out. I went running across the field. I said, oh, look at him. And, and he says, this is my land. And | 15:49 |
| Cynthia Woods | I'm What do you | 16:43 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Mean? Yeah. And it was, I mean, it's that kind of thing. I, what I really like to do, since I do so much work with kids, I really like to take a group of kids from the inner city, you know, to a place like Mississippi to actually see men, you know, tossing hay on their own land. You know, I mean, it's a man, this is true. This is true. This is very true. But I don't work in Georgia. You know, I work in Mississippi, Georgia | 16:43 |
| Cynthia Woods | Needs | 17:08 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | The south. Yeah, it does. All of the states do. All of the states do. And we really, you know, I mean we really kind of looking Yeah. With Hong Kong. Yeah. Looking at that. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. But I know more people in Mississippi than I do in Georgia. (laugh). Yes, ma'am. | 17:08 |
| Speaker 9 | as the focus of the Mississippi project on rural Mississippi during that period. And I was wondering if you had an opportunity to | 17:22 |
| Cynthia Woods | Do any photographs or | 17:34 |
| Speaker 9 | Find any photographs that would illustrate Blacks in the cities like Jackson, Meridian, Hattiesburg. Oh yeah. And that would make an interesting contrast. | 17:35 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Yeah, we have there are a lot of, I have a lot of photographs of that I did in Jackson. everal actually. The thing, the thing that you find when you, like, if I'm doing, I did a number of families that lived in Jackson, but they migrated there from some of the part of the state, you know, which was sometimes a very rural part. I'm trying to think specifically. Mr. Haring's photographs were pretty much from Jackson. 'cause he lived there pretty much all of his life. So you got a lot of the church scenes of churches in Jackson, that kind of thing. So yeah, it, it, it contrasts. But I think, you know, it's, like I said before, you still see a common thread. I think it sort of went through any photograph, especially if you're dealing with snapshots. | 17:49 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | f they were formal photographs, it would be something different. But with a snapshot, you keep seeing these things that keep repeating themselves. And that was with any family collection, be it Black, White, anybody, you're gonna have the same birthday party, the same, you know, whatever. It's gonna keep coming up. Those in Mike Michael Busey does as a book out called Timeframes, where he go actually goes into our type of images, things that keep popping up how people oppose, how women oppose in, within the frame of a picture. It's really weird to, to read that and see the, the images | 18:30 |
| Speaker 2 | Repeated. I don't smiling because you showed the photograph [indistinct] discussion about cars and Blackfoot flash yesterday. And I wish you all knew I did call my daddy. So y'all had said it. The car was in black (laugh) photograph and he took him a little minute stumble and rolled around his left frame himself, but he finally got it out together and said, oh no, baby daddy wouldn't. Do you like that (laugh)? And I want to ask you a question about as photographer, when you know, cars in the background of a female and male class, see, 'cause I'm just an opinion that a car is another toy that that that a man has in this might you wants to just have that taken with that toy. But when you were taking, when you were going through the old photographs in Mississippi cases, did you see a lot of photographs or were you aware of an how rate of photographs in front of, near or around cars? | 19:05 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Oh, everybody. Everybody. Well, the car was also status symbol. You know, it was a symbol of status. And it still is. I mean, in the African American community, your car is, it's | 20:08 |
| Speaker 2 | Your car. I know. But crying out loud, | 20:21 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | You know, and, and it's still like that people still are gonna take, I mean, that's one of the thing the kids did over the project. The first thing they did was ran to a car. You know, somebody had a Bronco. It is like, take me on in front of this car. You know, that's why you have, you have those kinds of things. Yeah. I mean, you know, you keep seeing that | 20:23 |
| Speaker 2 | When you're, as | 20:45 |
| Speaker 10 | Of your project, I take it that you're collecting stories. Do you collect your stories orally or do you use a tape | 20:47 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Recorder? I have a tape recorder, but we really haven't gotten into the, the the oral history part of it. What I, the way that I was doing it, I was basically using a photograph to reinforce what, especially with Mr. Crow's collection, which was huge to reinforce what we had, you know, what he was saying about the photographs. Cause I couldn't write that fast. Now when I was in Ville, Mississippi, I did speak with a couple of ladies down there. I do have their recorded conversations. And I was also like I go into a juvenile or something and, you know, talk to the lady that was there. I got a great conversation in Shelby, Mississippi of the slavery in the juvenile. She own the juvenile, you know, just her opinions on what was happening in Shelby and that kind of thing. So I do, you know, kind of, but we really haven't gotten into the oral aspect of it full force yet, which is supposed to come in the separate phase of | 20:53 |
| Speaker 3 | When, you know, organization. Do you do you organize your photographs coincide with the tape so that you know which photo? | 21:49 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | They're both. They're both. hey, they're also numbered. They're also numbered. ach photograph has it, each frame with 35 millimeters, a little difficult, four by five with a four by five. Each time that I copy a photograph, I also copy the number of the photograph to correspond with the number on a piece of paper that I have. So I know, you know exactly where I'm going. And if I'm recording the conversation, like the one that I, the one that I did with Mr. Crow was on 35 was 35 millimeter film. So basically what we did, we just called him up out before we went to the next program. If it breaks up the, you know, the continuity of the conversation. But, you know, you can be in a conversation and you go, oh yeah, well that's while he's going, that's I'll go frame 8 89, something like continue talking, you know, | 21:56 |
| Cynthia Woods | And I have some concerns about the issue of donor agreements and rights to use it and reproduce it. Has that been addressed? You know, we get them to sign a donor agreement, well at this point, even with surveys, we get permission to use their names in our database. And I have a concern about eventually we hope to collect some of those things for our archives. And at that point we are gonna put restrictions on the reproduction. as that been addressed? | 22:42 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | No. And I think, I think that that will probably come up in publishing, but so far we do the same thing. Basically, we get them to sign and agree on a state, a statement saying that, you know, it's gonna be put in the archives, it's gonna be used for humanitarian purposes, educational purposes, whatever. ou know, not nothing commercial. We're not gonna blow 'em up, you know, on a billboard or anything. Most people are, you know, they're really, most people are real. I mean, they're agreeable to doing something. Yeah. They feel like they're contributing something, | 23:21 |
| Cynthia Woods | Sign it away. But they're fine with you. They're fine with me and they'll sign with them. You know? Right. So at one point they may, this may become an issue. | 23:52 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Yeah. From a legal sure standpoint. Sure. But no, it's like, it's like my mom says, you have to cross that bridge when you come to it. You know? I mean, there's always gonna be some kind of legal battle with something one way or the other. But I mean, unless you are you know, unless you're just exploiting somebody, it, it's usually not an issue. It's like model, it's like model releases. Know, I don't get model releases at | 24:02 |
| Cynthia Woods | This point, but I was hoping that somehow we could start a process of planning for anticipating the need to, you know, to avoid | 24:26 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Problem possible. Do you know, the only thing I could think, okay, I was just, I was talking to Ms. Walker a couple weeks ago Margaret Walker Alexander, and she was talking about the lawsuit, you know, people that had sued her. And that's basically the same issue. I mean, it's all the same thing. ou know, having a document and using that document and somebody comes along and suit and, and you know, Congress is going back and forth with, with, and until they settle it, you know, it's always gonna be an issue. I mean, it's, it's sort of like the thing, it's sort of like the kind of thing that you never get any work done. If you, you know, (laugh) you, but it's gonna come up. Yeah. It's, it's gonna come up. But I don't know how you could prepare for it. I don't know how you could prepare to be, you know, I don't know. I just want, oh, did you wanna ask? Yeah, yeah. | 24:37 |
| Speaker 11 | I'm just curious to know, against what backdrop do you assess whether or not you really have | 25:26 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | A, | 25:32 |
| Speaker 11 | A holistic portrait of Mississippi? What, what, yeah. How do you determine what, determine what determines that? Is it just, you know, I like this, this is wonderful, this is great. This is rich. And | 25:34 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | You, it is, like I said, you, you, you did, you do it like that. And you also do with, with capturing, you know, a moment capture. I mean there, you know, the aesthetics and photographs that, you know, some things I've copied that most people, you know, might look at and you know what the, hey, why'd she do that? But there's something about the immediacy of that moment that was captured. I have a one of the instance of picture kids from snowballs. t's just a simple photograph, but it's just the immediacy of that moment, the releases that snowball going across. And it's everyday life. I mean, this is | 25:49 |
| Speaker 11 | What, so do you, are you consciously trying to tell a particular | 26:25 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Story? Not yet. I can't. We can't yet because we don't know what we have. | 26:28 |
| Speaker 11 | No, what I mean is the final product, are you aware that you're consciously trying to portray, consciously trying to tell a particular story? Or are you satisfied just to | 26:32 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | Let the photographs tell their own stories? I think in the end, yes. That it won't, that the photograph, it will have to be oral as well as, as with the photographs, which is the second phase of the project. photograph is one thing, but a photograph in an oral account of that photograph is something else. Because once you sit down with a person and they begin to give you an oral account of what happened on the day that that photograph was taken, it becomes much more than a photograph. It becomes a photograph and a moment it becomes a time capsule. It's, it's like a little, little thing in time that you managed to, to capture. So I think, you know, that in the end, you know, we will use, it will be oral and, and photography at least I'm hoping that that's the way it'll come out. But as far as selection, you know, there, there are no rules on selecting anything. I mean, you could go and say, well, I want everything to be formal, you know, which would be like a photograph of Ms. Beauty's mold farm. And you could do all that. But that's not telling the whole story either. I don't know. There's just certain scenes. I try to get as many landscapes. ou know, whatever. You just can get in. Yeah, you try, but you | 26:42 |
| Robert Korstad | Can't. I think we need to take a, we need a break because it's, it's 10 30. Lynn's been here for a while. (laugh) we need to lunch, history department lounge. Oh, okay. Yeah, just a couple of Discussion groups is usual. And I think, 'cause I think the last day or so, all this, the discussion about documentary photography projects like Lynn is doing, I mean, there are a whole lot of different questions that we that we can start talking about there. So why don't we, I guess, is there any, is there coffee? We're not going back over to the lounge now, right? People should just go to their discussion sections. Okay. Okay. In lunch. Lunch is gonna be in the history department. Lounge. We're, yeah. Rather than Mary Williamson. 'cause we have all the food over there and it's easier than Kerry. And we have the, we have lunch. So unless you have some real special needs I think we'll have enough for everybody. So go to your discussion groups at noon. Come, come back there and try to be there at noon. Thank you. And thank you. | 27:58 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | A couple minutes. I've gotta head back to Atlanta on the road again. | 29:10 |
| Robert Korstad | Yeah, | 29:16 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | I'll be, | 29:18 |
| Robert Korstad | Thank | 29:21 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | You | 29:21 |
| Robert Korstad | So much. I know | 29:21 |
| Lynn Marshall Linnemeier | It's. | 29:27 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund