Striking images of historic segregated schoolhouses in New Jersey and Pennsylvania by acclaimed artist Wendel A. White are featured in “Schools for the Colored,” which opens Sunday, Feb. 27 from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Harrison Township Historical Society’s Old
Town Hall Museum in Mullica Hill.
Distinguished Professor of Art at Stockton University and 2021 Robert Gardner Fellow in
Photography, Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography, Harvard University, White has been hailed for his work exploring historically Black towns in the northern border states
through elegant black and white photographs.
A visit to the historically African-American town of Whitesboro in Cape May County in 1989 has led to a now decades-long journey, camera in hand, exploring nearly forgotten communities and stories along both back roads and urban areas.
“The presence of Black schools in the communities of southern New Jersey was evident during the making of the earliest images in my first project focusing on this subject, Small Towns, Black Lives,” White said. “The persistent role of schools as places of segregated educational apartheid and spaces for agency and accomplishment within the African American community, was a continual source for creative exploration.”
Described as “surreal and haunting,” Wendel White’s photographs in Schools for the Colored
document the buildings and landscapes of the segregated U.S. educational system in the
decades before the civil rights movement in the Northern border states. In his stark black-and-white imagery of both long standing structures and crumbling and long-since demolished buildings, White obscures the details of their surroundings into a hazy mantle of white. In cases where the structures no longer stand, White inserts silhouettes of the schoolhouses that formerly occupied the sites.
Professor White will be lecturing about his work on the exhibition’s opening day at the society’s Richwood Academy Cultural Center at 3 p.m. Because seating is limited, admission is by ticket only. Tickets are free and can be obtained online at the society’s public Facebook page. The lecture will also be livestreamed and archived for future viewing at the same site. The Cultural Center is located at 836 Lambs Road, Richwood, N.J.
The exhibition will continue on view Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. through May 22. White will return to the museum on Sunday, April 3, for a meet-the-artist reception and will be available to sign copies of his book Small Towns, Black Lives, which is available for purchase. Coincidentally, White’s work is also included in Posing Beauty in African American Culture currently showing at the New Jersey State Museum at 205 W. State St. in Trenton through May 22.
Old Town Hall Museum is located at 62-64 S. Main St. in the heart of Mullica Hill’s Historic
District and admission is free. Information is available at 856-478-4949 and the Society’s public Facebook Page.
This exhibition and programs are made possible in part by funding from The Gloucester County Cultural and Heritage Commission at Rowan College of South Jersey, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State and the National Endowment for the Arts.
