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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Maria Elena Baca, Communications, 612-348-7865
Edward Hathaway, Hennepin County Library Special Collections, 612-543-8203
“Black Twin Cities” features photographs of the Twin Cities African American community, from the John F. Glanton Collection. Selections will be on view in Hennepin Gallery, at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis.
After military service in WWII, John F. Glanton (1923-2004) worked for a few years as a professional photographer. He captured dozens of family gatherings, social events, musical performances, church functions, sporting events, and individual portraits in the African American communities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. His photographs provide a rare look into the personal, professional, and social lives of what was then a very small community in postwar, pre-civil rights era Twin Cities. Today, we have forgotten many of these people’s names.
A wonderful discovery
After Glanton’s death, his niece’s husband, Anthony Scott, discovered the collection of more than 800 photographic negatives in the late photographer’s garage. Scott recognized the photographs’ importance and contacted the Hennepin County Library for help. Through a painstaking process, library staff cleaned and scanned each negative and held public events for community support to identify as many of the people in the photographs as possible. In collaboration with the Glanton family, the library has made these images available to the public.
Find the photos online
In addition to the photographs on display in this exhibit, you can view all 821 John F. Glanton photographs in the library's digital collections at www.hclib.org/digitalcollections. A selection of 200 images, along with commentary that further illuminates the lives and experiences of African Americans in postwar Minnesota, are featured in Double Exposure: Images of Black Minnesota in the 1940s (1940s (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October 2018). The book is available for checkout at Hennepin County Library.
The Hennepin Gallery is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Hennepin County Government Center, A-level, 300. S. Sixth St., Minneapolis.
This exhibit is presented by Hennepin County Library Special Collections. The Gallery is a project of Hennepin County Communications.
Look for more news on the Hennepin County website at hennepin.us/news.
Discover how we're making a difference in our communities at hennepin.us/stories.
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