Plus, documenting Yellowstone’s floods
|  | Saturday, June 18, 2022 | | | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY SARAHBETH MANEY
| | By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences
“Black joy is your best summer day in your most stylish outfit,” says photographer and filmmaker Dee Dwyer. “It’s freedom, you know? It’s having no fear,” she says, pausing. “Just like Nina Simone states: Freedom is having no fears.”
Dee is one of several artists who photo editor Maya Valentine approached to celebrate the Black experience by highlighting artists who dedicated a lot of their work–if not all of it–to visualizing the stories of their own community. In writing the Nat Geo story, Rachel Jones noted that Black joy often comes with a caveat: “We are happy that we can function in a system that was designed to keep us obedient, invisible, and disenfranchised.”
In Maya’s interviews, “each storyteller–artist, filmmaker, photographer–was asked the same three questions–about traditions, untold stories, joy, love, and resilience. With each interview, we heard about the role that Black joy plays in their work and personal lives.”
“Black joy is really reclaiming the right to rejoice because for so long that was something that was not offered to Black people,” says Sarahbeth Maney, who knows a thing or two about capturing joy. Her photograph of Leila Jackson, made during the hearings that confirmed her mother Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, went viral. “It feels like a form of protest but also it feels like a form of healing.” (At top is her photo on the meaning of sisterhood, set beside Oakland’s Lake Merritt; below, on the South Side of Chicago, two images of what photographer Akilah Townsend calls “an ode to memories of summertime Chi.”)
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 | PHOTOGRAPHS BY AKILAH TOWNSEND
| | Maya, the photo editor, when asked what she hopes viewers will take away from this collaboration, reinforces the significance of having Black artists visualize their community’s experience:
“Having our stories captured by our own people is so important and uplifting.”
See the full story here—and catch more images below. | | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTIANNA COX
| | | At a scaled-down 2021 Labor Day celebration in New York City, Pam Johnson (left) sports a blue carnival costume designed by Sesame Flyers, a Caribbean organization, and a young masquerader displays a variety of Caribbean flags. | | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY DEE DWYER
| | | Wheelie Wayne demonstrates his skills on his quad bike in Baltimore, his hometown. Wayne’s dedication to bike life culture has led to him being called a godfather to this unique community. | | | |
 | COLLAGE CREATED BY RACHEL ELISE THOMAS. GIF CREATED BY REBEKAH BARLAS
| | “She is the heart of our family,” says Rachel Elise Thomas of her grandmother, Oneida. The artist created this collage in Oneida’s honor, using items from women in her family: “The picture of the young woman in the collage is my grandmother when she was 19. The handwritten note in the envelope was found in my mother’s recipe book; it’s a dump cake recipe that my grandmother had written down. The envelope is from a birthday card my sister gave me, and the yellow roses are from a vintage flower advertisement.”
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID GOLDMAN, AP
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY KWAME BRATHWAITE
| | Through his father’s lens: The son of famed photographer Kwame Braithwaite says his father, now 84, has always sought a more equitable society through art. Looking at his dad’s work, “His images were the visual lyrics of the Black is Beautiful movement, intersecting the worlds of politics, fashion, music, art and culture—from Little Stevie Wonder and the Supremes at the Apollo Theater in New York City in 1963, to the Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali in 1974, to Nelson Mandela’s historic inauguration as president of South Africa in 1994,” Kwame S. Brathwaite writes. But the photographer also has covered family life, as in the image (above) of his daughter, Ndola Brathwaite, on a school field trip to Lincoln Center, circa 1973.
Father’s Day: What my dad taught me about fishing in Alaska
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| Up the hill: The wildfire smoke has a pretty pink hue as Heraclio De La Cruz pushes sheep to higher elevations in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest near Cle Elum, Washington. With increased wildfires in the West, moving flocks safely through mountains is getting more difficult. The main duties for these shepherds, responsible for about a thousand sheep each, are moving their flock to fresh grazing grounds, protecting sheep from predators, and making sure none is lost.
Speaking of shepherds: A rare look at a perilous journey in the Caucasus
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 | | Black joy is Black people being unapologetically Black. When it comes to music, dance, the way we laugh, the way we talk. Just the vibration of Blackness at its fullest. | | | | Asha Stuart | | Documentary photographer and filmmaker, Nat Geo Explorer | | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY DIANA MARKOSIAN, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
| | Walking in the sunlight: Portland artist and activist Cleo Davis, Jr., walks with his children in their neighborhood. The image, recently used in our Photo of the Day archival feature, was part of a March 2021 article on civil rights activism in Oregon and the state’s racist past. When Oregon became a state in 1859, it had a law banning Black residents. Though Portland has since developed an ultraliberal reputation—and even been parodied for it—the city is also one of the whitest large communities in America. Nat Geo’s Nina Strochlic examines how the city became a hotbed of racial reckoning after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
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This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Jen Tse, Heather Kim, and Monica Williams. Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, April George, Hobbs Bell, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Missed yesterday’s newsletter? It’s here.
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