Dixie

Lauren Grant

Date of Award

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Freedland, Barry

Keywords

Segregation, Photography, African Americans

Area of Concentration

Art

Abstract

There is always a road that winds its way through the heart and soul of black America. It may be called a street, boulevard, a drive, an avenue, or a way, but it is always named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the roads that link to it are its nervous system. However, it has become commonplace in popular culture to identify a Martin Luther King street as a generic demarcation of black space, of ruin, as a depressing and ironic road sign of danger, and of failure and decline. While these factors may be more or less true, it is not because those who live there like living in poverty or in segregated communities. Many Americans vaguely realize that America is still residentially segregated, but few understand the depth of black segregation nor the degree to which it is institutionally and individually maintained. For two years I photographed racially divided communities to document and their existence in the Sarasota area in an effort to gauge why integration has not occurred, to experience the social dynamic of the black community, and to question perpetuating class and race-based stereotypes.

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