On Wednesday, February 19, President Joyce F. Brown sat down with three influential Black female creatives to discuss how images influence thinking and shape our culture.
“The Power of Imagery,” an event hosted by the Social Justice Center at FIT, brought together Emmy-nominated, Tony-winning producer Debra Martin Chase; Robin Givhan, Pulitzer Prize–winning senior critic-at-large for the Washington Post; and Julieanna Richardson, founder and president of The HistoryMakers.
VIPs in attendance included ABC TV’s Deborah Roberts; author and columnist Charles M. Blow; editor Marielle Bobo*; interior designer Sheila Bridges; Black Fashion Fair founder Antoine Gregory*; actor Donshea Hopkins; actor Gena Avery Knowles; author, lawyer, producer, and wellness expert Tonya Lewis Lee; stylist Freddie Leiba; celebrity real estate agent Spencer Means; and fashion designers Frederick Anderson*, Esé Azénabor, Chuks Collins, Epperson, B Michael*, Rebecca Moses*, Fe Noel, Tracy Reese, Ralph Rucci*, and Elie Tahari. (Asterisks indicate FIT alumni.)
“We’ve seen that imagery can be used to create and sustain stereotypical notions,” Dr. Brown said in her introduction. “Or it can be used to acknowledge and possibly elevate the stories of who we are, where we have come from, and the underlying hopes and dreams of where we want to go.”
Chase talked about her mission to bring Black representation to TV and film: a Cinderella (1997) starring Whitney Houston, Brandy, and Whoopi Goldberg; Black leads in The Cheetah Girls TV movie series (2003–08); and Raven-Symoné as a princess in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004)—which Chase created with her writer and former intern, Shonda Rhimes.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t see people who looked like me,” Chase said. “That’s why I’m in this business—to change the images.”
Givhan described how fashion taught her how much can be learned from a single image, and how those lessons in reading visual language became essential to her reporting about the arts, politics, and race.
Richardson said that when she was a child, the only Black people she learned about in school were George Washington Carver and slaves. As an adult, she came upon countless African Americans who had made history but were in danger of being lost to it. She created The HistoryMakers, an archive of video interviews, as a way to elevate those important figures and cement them in the historical record.
Throughout the conversation, photographs of Black actors, athletes, politicians, and more cycled on the screens behind the presenters. Richardson pointed out that the selection included images of Dr. Brown’s mother, a Cotton Club dancer, and grandmother, a seamstress for the Cotton Club.
“I’m the only one who can’t sew in my family,” Dr. Brown quipped. “What else would you do but come and run the school?”
As the event concluded, an audience member asked, “What imagery does America need to see in order for America’s soul to be touched and healed?”
The panelists agreed that the video of George Floyd’s murder was the last imagery that galvanized America to take action against racism. But Givhan hoped that the next one would be more uplifting.
“I don’t want it to be an image that is fundamentally rooted in sadness and trauma and death,” she said. “America is better than that. And I think that there is an image that is full of joy that can bring people back around to their collective soul. I don’t know what that image is. But I am certainly hopeful that it’s out there.”