Races, Negroes: United States. Virginia. Hampton. Hampton Normal and Industrial School: Agencies Promoting Assimilation of the Negro. Training for Commercial and Industrial Employment. Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Va.: Elementary Carpentry and Cabinet Making. 1899 - 1900

Curator: This photograph, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, captures a carpentry class at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. The image is titled "Races, Negroes: United States. Virginia. Hampton." Editor: There’s something so stark about the composition. The repetition of the workbenches, the serious faces…it feels both hopeful and unsettling. Curator: It’s a study in the complexities of assimilation. Hampton was founded to educate freedmen after the Civil War, aiming to provide industrial and agricultural training. Editor: Look at the lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. A symbol of enlightenment, perhaps, but also of utilitarian progress, and even a kind of surveillance. Curator: Precisely. Johnston's photographs from Hampton were displayed at the Paris Exposition, meant to showcase the progress of Black education, but also to reinforce certain ideologies about race and labor. Editor: It's an image that speaks volumes about the aspirations, the constraints, and the layered meanings embedded in the act of building a future. Curator: Yes, a potent reminder that images are never neutral, but always shaped by the forces around them.