- Funding for this program was made possible by the members of WQED and the Allegheny Regional Asset District.

Thank you.

- What this exhibition really shows is that artistry of what history in this country looked like.

So it isn't just talking about African American soldiers in World War II but it's showing you family life and friends and community in the most beautiful artistic and aesthetic ways.

- It brings back a lot of old memories.

- I wanted to know if, first of all, were there other LGBTQ African people.

And then I wanted to see how they fuse these two identities together.

Because if I could see how they did it, maybe I could get a little bit of an answer for how I could do it myself.

- Started in 2014, when I fell in love with it.

And that's the beauty of street photography.

It just like, you know, whatever your point of view is, whatever's on the street, whatever you see that hits your spirit Keep Pittsburg Dope is for da people.

- I was to take a picture of him in a meal in West Virginia and all the way down he apologized.

And he was gonna write a letter which he did to my boss to explain that I was on time but he was looking for a photographer.

He wasn't looking for a black photographer.

That was his shock.

(light inspirational music) - I am Fred Kenderson.

A industrial photographer.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I started many many years ago developing film in my basement.

I've had a lot of good, I call them lucky, but I should call them blessed events in my life that have built my career.

And I was raised in a family where hard work was the other word.

And around the age of 13 I started developing film and the sensation of seeing an image that you could produce was really thrilling.

I lived on the hill when the closest houses to the Pittsburgh Courier and one day, Teenie Harris always caught the trolley right next to my house.

And one day I asked Teenie, "Could I carry your camera bag some day?

And maybe I can learn or pick up a few tips."

And he said to me, "Boy, if you ever learn photography, you're gonna learn it the hard way as I did."

And I never forgot that.

And I know as I learned photography, I always remembered, you learned it the hard way.

I, as a photographer, was never much of a straight photographer.

I would get...

I can't say depressed.

That just wasn't what I wanted to do.

I was trained in a studio, I was trained on locations and that was a style of photography that I think I picked up.

I think my big earning yearning in photography was to be an artist.

So I opened up a studio downtown within a couple blocks of PPG because I was doing a lot portraits for PPG.

Two more days, I'll be 85 and we can do another hour talking about resistance.

We were shooting eight by ten cameras on construction sites.

And one day I was sent to the airport to meet a man coming in from an advertising agency in New York.

And all of a sudden there was nobody on the floor but me and another man and I couldn't leave my equipment when the crowd was there.

So I walked over to him and asked him, was he Mr. X?

And he looked at me and he realized that's my photographer.

And I was to take a picture of him in a meal in West Virginia.

And all the way down he apologized and he was gonna write a letter which he did to my boss to explain that I was on time but he was looking for a photographer.

He wasn't looking for a black photographer.

That was his shock.

(light piano music) - My name is Cynthia Marie Kenderson.

I go by the art name, I AM Cynt, and I am the co-owner of this art gallery, BLAQK House Collections.

Fred Kenderson is my father.

He is a photographer to some, he is a teacher to some, he is a mentor to some, he is an icon to some.

He is an iconic genius to me.

(light piano music continues) - It makes me proud that my father was one of the first corporate black photographers in Pittsburgh.

Anyone can draw, anyone can be considered an artist but to be considered a corporate artist means that you have to be accepted, chosen.

And during that time period, it was a very racist time period.

- I was a photographer, not just a black photographer who could only take a black picture.

I carried this with me for years.

- Was my father a teacher to me?

Most definitely.

I saw him as a teacher to the community, even though I didn't understand that.

My father just had that aura of a teacher when he talks.

I just can't call him and ask a simple question.

He's going to give me a lesson and an understanding.

(light piano music continues) - That's the speed- - Okay.

- Of the car.

- Okay.

- Now the higher the speed, the more pixels.

- Okay.

A good teacher is not a person that's gonna give you an answer.

They want you to have the experience and that's how I see my father.

It's a person that wants you to have the experience.

- Always describe my camera similar to the hammer of a carpenter.

It's simply a tool.

That's all it is.

It's a fancy thing that cost a lot of money but it records what I see.

And the style of photography that I had was pictures that I made, not snapped.

- I didn't understand my father being on the level of a Teenie Harris or any other names because I never really followed photography as an art form.

I saw him as this businessman that had a craft, was a master of this craft.

But I didn't understand the artistic aspect until I began to merge and understand my artistic place.

And then I began to understand my father's artistic place.

I had a dream like my father for years.

This gallery is a manifestation of something that I carried with me for about 20 years.

It was ironic.

I always wanted to start in the black community.

I thought about starting in Wilkinsburg, where I was from.

I then ran at a studio in Homewood and searched for buildings.

And I just didn't find the fit and 'til finally one day, my former president of my company who owns this building called me and said, "Hey, I have a vacancy.

Would you like to start your gallery?"

And the ironic part was when I came down here I was like, "Wow, why downtown?

Why in this corner?

Why on this street?"

And when I walked around the corner, I was like, "Wow this is very ironic.

My father's first building was around the corner."

- We were raised to do your thing and be yourself and be the best self you could be.

And that's what I think Cindy does is she's doing her thing.

She's living her dream.

- I think he deserves a public recognition because, for one, he's a part of Pittsburgh.

For two, because I believe he added value to Pittsburgh.

That's when I realized that the respect that he is that he is due, not just as the artist, as the craft, but as the teacher, the mentor, the person that he is and the inspiration that he is to people.

- As a trailblazer, I don't like titles.

Yes, yes.

I was the only one there.

I didn't have much to confer with, nothing to compare with, but I always considered myself blessed that I was able to make a living doing something that I truly enjoyed doing and doing my way and could sell myself as myself.

- As a queer Nigerian person, I grew up really struggling with these two identities, feeling like I couldn't be both LGBTQ and African.

Hearing things like it was un-African to be LQBT.

And I didn't feel like I could be a whole person.

And for me, dealing with those personal struggles, eventually really drove me to photography because photography became a space where I could be free.

I did a lot of work around LGBTQ, African history.

And one of the things that I learned during that process is that colonization, progressively erased and destroyed and created this narrative that it was un-African, that this, that black people were so close to the level of animals that we were only capable of a natural heterosexual impulse to reproduce.

It's not that our culture is the problem, it's that our culture has been transformed and distorted through the colonial process.

And so I'm working as much as possible to share aspects of history so that, as we move forward in the 21st century, we transform our culture to then create open spaces for LGBT people.

Oh my god, I love this picture so much.

I spent like a year just not doing photography 'cause I didn't think I was good enough photographer.

And I did this picture.

I thought like I could see that there was some talent.

'Cause I was like, I'm never gonna take a picture as good as this one, again."

That was my whole thing.

So it was nice.

It was a nice opening moment.

It inspired me to keep going.

(upbeat inspirational music) I photographed over 50 LGBTQ African immigrants in 10 countries across North America, Europe and the Caribbean.

And that project was really based in my own personal experience.

When I went back to Nigeria, I had really traumatic experience where I really felt I couldn't be both LGBTQ and African.

Dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety, coming out of that experience, I didn't really feel like I had a voice.

And for me, I wanted to know if, first of all, were there other LGBTQ African people.

That was the first question I wanted to know.

And then I wanted to see how they fuse these two identities together.

Because if I could see how they did it, maybe I could get a little bit of an answer for how I could do it myself.

(upbeat inspirational music continues) - [Woman] Justice for Michael Brown.

- [Man] Justice for Michael Brown - [Man 2] Justice for Michael Brown.

- I had been really struck by the murder of Michael Brown and how his body was left in the street for hours.

And then how that image was then plastered all over the media.

I was like, how can I now maybe craft something to respond to that and reimagine the black bodies a space of magic and life.

(bright upbeat music) I came to this method of actually painting the model's bodies with fluorescent paints.

I'm an engineer by training so I built my own flash that only transmits ultraviolet light and then photographing the models under the ultraviolet light with the painted patterns that I've done on their bodies to then illuminate their body in these patterns of the cosmos.

- Being able to see the pictures.

It allows you to think of yourself as bigger, right, as a whole universe.

And that's not really something that people are encouraged to do.

- Honestly, it was really inspiring to be able to like take a step back and see the frame and see something like what felt like the truest bits of myself kind of illuminated on the digital screen of the camera.

- You don't get to see black people experiencing pleasure as much as you do see them experiencing pain because of all of that, like pain and hardship that we've endured there's something so magical and beautiful about us.

I think doing this shoot, it was like one of the first times that I really felt beautiful.

- I think that's so powerful for black people to be able to see themselves as magical.

It's very healing.

It's been really great because even with all of the trauma that started that journey, I feel like it's really just helped me to now resolve a lot of that to actually feel like, you know what I've made it this far and I can move on.

I can move forward.

- Would you mind if I got a quick shot of you?

Like in the middle of this alleyway.

Is that alright?

So... Yeah, right there is perfect.

And if you wanna, you can gimme a arm cross whatever you wanna do.

Yep.

Just like that.

So gimme a head turn.

Gimme me a look.

Hold that.

Nice.

Noice.

Thank you.

- All right, bro.

'Preciate it.

If you're on Instagram, social media, it's called Keep Pittsburgh Dope.

(upbeat hip hop music) - Keep Pittsburgh Dope is an Instagram page, a Facebook page, a website that showcases the people of Pittsburgh in the streets, their style, their vibe, anything that catches my eye.

(upbeat hip hop music continues) Started in 2014 and I fell in love with it.

And that's the beauty of street photography.

It's just like, you know whatever your point of view is, whatever's on the street, whatever you see that hits your spirit.

(chilled hip hop music) Keep Pittsburgh Dope is for the people.

You don't realize just the, you know, the effect, you know, you have on somebody's day sometimes.

Thank you.

If you're on Instagram I run a page called keeppittsburghdope.

- Okay, cool.

- Alright.

Thank you.

- I'll send you my contact stuff.

- [Chancelor] All right.

Much love.

All right.

Thank you.

(chilled hip hop music) My thought was always Pittsburgh.

'Cause I just- My thought was always there's no one doing that here.

I feel like we're underdogs.

We're gonna have that moment where it's gonna be like, people outside like, "Man, we gotta get to Pittsburgh."

Or we're not there yet in my eyes.

And I just wanna, I wanna be a part of a different narrative of Pittsburgh from the outside looking in.

Keep Pittsburgh Dope is my passion.

Seven years strong, 30,000 followers.

It's been a beautiful journey and it's a only the beginning.

So it's been great though.

Yeah.

(upbeat hip hop music) - The photographs they really cover what the life was for black soldier.

I'd enjoyed seeing them because it brings back a lot of old memories.

It was an exciting time.

We did our job.

- [Narrator] Eugene Boyer Jr. knows these images well.

- This is when you remember when you were looking at (indistinct) - Yeah.

- And then this is your quote.

- [Narrator] On this day, Mr. Boyer and his son are at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

They're admiring a new exhibit called Service & Sacrifice, the work of photographer, Charles Teenie Harris.

(Cosmopolitan) - Teenie was a nickname and he started this interest in photography and he was given a loan by his brother Woogie and bought his first camera.

(Cosmopolitan continues) - [Narrator] Teenie was among the most prolific photographers of the 20th century.

He shot thousands of photos documenting the urban black experience in Pittsburgh from the 1920s to the 1970s.

Many of them for the Pittsburgh Courier.

- [Dominque] There are about 80,000 black and white negatives that make up that portion of the collection.

- [Narrator] Dominique Luster is an archivist at the museum.

- He did a great deal of portrait photography for children's birthday parties wedding photographs, dance recitals.

Everyone knew Teenie and everyone trusted Teenie.

And that afforded him a lot of personal access to celebrities, entertainers, politicians.

- [Narrator] The Carnegie Museum acquired the full Teenie Harris collection back in 2001.

Since then it has launched many showings of his work, Service & Sacrifice is the latest.

- And what this exhibition really shows is that artistry of what history in this country looked like.

So it isn't just talking about African American soldiers in World War II, but it's showing you family life and friends and community in the most beautiful, artistic and aesthetic ways.

- [Narrator] To help with the selection of 25 photographs from thousands in the archive, the museum recruited two guest curators.

33 year old, Lance Woods, is a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and 91 year old Eugene Boyer Jr., who's a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War.

- Mr. Boyer served in a segregated troop.

So he understands exactly what is happening in these photographs and can explain it in great detail.

How it felt to be a black soldier in a segregated troop and to come home home after World War II and to understand what it felt like to be an African American soldier fighting for liberties that you didn't have at home.

- If you were a black draftee, you in most cases went to the south to be trained in the south.

Your officers were mostly white and mostly Southern.

And they were picked because of their Southern background because it was assumed that they knew how to handle us.

And so there were times when the enemy was nicer than the person who commanded you.

- [Narrator] As a teenager, Eugene Boyer had served as an honored member of the Pennsylvania guard.

In 1945, he was drafted into the army and sent to Germany to serve in an all black battalion.

- That wasn't a combat situation.

The war in Europe was over and the Japanese had surrendered and we were occupying Germany to keep subversion from taking place.

All of our commanding officers were white.

Some of them, I think, took utter delight in seeing how miserable they could make us.

The restrictions they would put on your movement and the way they spoke to you and treated you.

And you knew you were being treated as a lesser.

- [Narrator] President Harry Truman abolished racial discrimination in the armed forces in 1948.

So when former staff sergeant, Lance Woods, enlisted in the army in 2003, segregation in the military was a thing of the past.

- Meeting Mr. Boyer, it was extremely inspiring because you're just, it's hard to imagine, you know just the things that he's experienced.

What is significant about Teenie's work, capturing African American participation in armed services, is that it's too often overlooked.

African Americans have a proud history of serving their country in the fact that we have a photographer of his stature to capture these things is extremely important to our history.

And also just is tangible evidence of that service.

- Mr. Boyer felt, back during World War II, when he came home, he was very proud of his service but he felt like the community didn't resonate with that.

However, at the same time, Lance had a comment in his interview where he talked about being very proud of his service and then he came home and go back to being called boy.

- [Narrator] In these photographs, military pride is on full display.

But there's another important reason for this exhibit.

- [Dominique] The majority of the individuals in this exhibition are unidentified.

Over the past 15 years or so.

We've really worked hard to add names, dates, and places to as many of the photographs as possible.

However, with the military section of this collection that has not been the case.

And so we really wanna use this opportunity to identify a lot of these service men and women.

- [Narrator] Among the unidentified is this young medic, it's Eugene Boyer's favorite photograph.

- The job of the medic was to rescue and try to keep the injured alive, to comfort the guy who was dying, probably the toughest job in the army.

- If someone find their father, their grandfather, their uncle in the photographs, they can contact us via phone, email address, social media, but you can reach out to us or you can leave a response sheet in the gallery.

And we walk to talk to you.

- [Narrator] Despite the hardships and discrimination, Eugene Boyer says he enjoyed his life in the military.

It was during his service that he became a draftsman and it became his life's work.

He also got married and became the father of two sons.

Lance Woods is now an attorney living in California.

And though their service was separated by 50 years both men say working on the exhibit has given them a new understanding and an acknowledgement that their military service mattered.

- You can be black and you can be proud and you can also serve in the military.

- This is America, this is all our home.

There's no place else to run to.

It has its faults but I believe it is, honestly, trying to be better.

(Big League Swing) - And what I would most love for people to walk away with are to really kind of broaden that understanding of what it means to serve and what it has meant to serve for a country that hasn't always shown those same liberties towards individuals of color and what it means to have victory abroad and victory at home.

To really have a community that embraces you when you return home from war.

(Big League Swing continues) (light bright music)