Sepia: Past. Pride. Power.

This exhibition features cover shots and photos from Sepia, a photojournalistic magazine styled like Look and occasionally described as the “poor man’s Ebony.” The magazine was founded in 1946 as Negro Achievements by Horace J. Blackwell, an African-American clothing merchant of Fort Worth.

Following the death of Blackwell in 1949, George Levitan, a Jewish-American man who was a plumbing merchant in Fort Worth, bought the magazines and Good Publishing Company (aka Sepia Publishing) in 1950. He changed the name to Sepia, and the magazine continued publishing beyond Levithan’s death until 1983. In 1991, the vast collection of Sepia photos was donated to the African American Museum, Dallas, and is now part of its permanent collection.

The Sepia exhibition includes some of the biggest names from the past century in entertainment, politics and culture, including Aretha Franklin, Huey Newton, Ray Charles, Althea Gibson, Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones and many more.

Additional exhibits on view at the African American Museum include:
-The History of the Prairie View Interscholastic League: Black High School Sports in Texas in the Era of Segregation, extended through Feb. 26, 2022
-Politics, Protest and Black Progress in Dallas in the 1980s: The Photographs of George Fuller, extended through Feb. 26, 2022

About the African American Museum, Dallas
Founded in 1974 as a part of Bishop College, the museum has operated independently since 1979. For more than 40 years, the African American Museum has stood as a cultural beacon in Dallas and the Southwestern United States. Located in Dallas’ historic Fair Park, the African American Museum is the only museum in the Southwestern United States devoted to the collection, preservation and display of African American artistic, cultural and historical materials that relate to the African-American experience.

The African American Museum incorporates a wide variety of visual art forms and historical documents that portray the African American experience in the United States, Southwest, and Dallas. The Museum has a small, but rich collection of African art, African-American fine art and one of the largest African American folk-art collections in the United States. Learn more at aamdallas.org.

Image: Ricardo Chibanga, first Black matador in bullfighting history, Sepia Magazine