An Exploration of Generational Freedom Circa 1941-1965 in Mississippi
📸: “African American children swimming in Municipal Swimming Pool, approximately 195x (circa 1941-1965), Hinds County in Jackson, Mississippi, Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Mirror Moment: Generational Freedom
The Mirror moment, generation freedom comes from the 1961 conversation between Studs Terkel and James Baldwin. Baldwin’s expiration of Bessie Smith and Black people in the South being free and strong is the sentiment generational freedom is rooted in. Baldwin describes the little girl who integrated Little Roch School or the school in Charlotte, North Carolina had being “much freer” “than the white child who sat there with a misconceived notion.” Furthermore, he claims that the very existence of these African American children is “proof the negros are much stronger in the South today simply because she knew who she was. And after all that child has been coming for a very long time, she didn’t come out of nothing.” Although many people deem the South as obsolete and a wasteland of a place to grow up in, Baldwin saw beauty in the kudzu-ridden South.
This mentality of being “much freer” is an expression I look for in all archival materials exploring the South. Personally, the embodiment of being much freer appears in this image in all of the children present. But especially in the beautifully breathtaking bird-like form of the child in the air on the left side of the picture. His wingspan is lifting him into flight and reminds me of the late Toni Morrison’s words, “If you want to fly you have to give up the shit that weighs you down.” With a parabola spine, this child ensures that there’s no additional laid to carry. Missepian Poet, Margaret Walker also solidifies the concept of being “much freer” in her poem “For My People” (especially in the last stanza of the second image below).
The child on the right of the flying child’s posture is linear. It appears as though he is running in the air, holding his breath before he lands in the water. Yet, Morrison writes in Song of Solomon that “if you surrender to the air, you can ride it.”
I love to see a sense of play and joy in the representation of Black childhood. Play is too often cut short by the realities of being a Black person in this society. Yet, the photographer's identity challenges all of my initial thoughts on this image and the young child holding his breath.
This aquatic play was surveilled by a police photographer named Ralp Houlan Hargrove Sr. Between 1941-1965 Hargrove Sr. took pictures of scenes around Jackson, Mississippi. How does Hargrove Sr.’s occupation change the lens through which he takes pictures? The action of taking flight and withholding breath becomes increasingly complicated to understand. What I can take away from this image is that a second generation full of courage has continued to issue forth. Lastly, I can take away the fact that a race of men has risen, despite attempts to be shot down by bullets and camera lenses, in an effort to take control. Plus this tender moment of writer Angie Thomas talking to kids in Mississippi in PBS’ Southern Storytellers Docuseries.