Harris's lens froze his subjects in moments of worship, work, study, play, protest, celebration, or simply being. Dubbed "One Shot" by Pittsburgh Mayor David L. Lawrence, Harris captured his images in a single frame because the Courier wouldn't supply him much film.
Only his published photos contained captions, but some subjects are easily recognized. They include Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong - almost every black celebrity who came through Pittsburgh - and many white ones, such as presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Teenie's 4 x 5-format camera also chronicled civil-rights protests, ghettos, and then-controversial biracial couples.
"They are incredibly powerful images of a way of life," says curator Louise Lippincott.
Viewing the prints makes one want to know more. For instance, the actors costumed in Victorian garb - what play were they performing? Those clean-cut teens sitting around a record player - what were they spinning?
These are questions Harris left unanswered. But hundreds of riddles have already been solved through the archive project. The white child getting a swim lesson from a black lifeguard in a newly integrated pool happens to be a museum security guard. The photo of a dashiki-wearing young man turned out to be Pittsburgh City Councilman Sala Udin. Though he had no idea Harris had snapped the shot, Udin says, "Whenever there was a gathering of more than three people, you expected to see Teenie there."
University of Pittsburgh history professor Larry Glasco says the archive is the largest collection of photos from any black community in the world. But it might have disappeared if Harris hadn't sued to regain control of his images from a collector who had talked him into selling management rights. He died after filing the suit, but his heirs won the collection and sold it to the museum, which is working with its sister institution, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and the university's history department.
| In "Black artists who defied stereotypes," the Christian Science Monitor's Lynn Margolis spotlights the late photographer Charles "Teenie" Harris in the runup to his photos' exhibition at Pittsburgh, Pa.'s Carnegie Museum of Art in 2007.
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