Doris Derby, photographer of African American life, dies at 82

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Doris Derby, photographer of African American life, dies at 82

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Doris Derby, photographer of African American life, dies at 82
One of the few Black women to document the civil rights movement in photography, she revealed in poignant intimacy the lives of the people for whom

Obituaries

Doris Derby, photographer of African American life, dies at 82

By Emily Langer
April 8, 2022 at 9:58 p.m. EDT

Doris Derby, who was one of the few Black women to chronicle the civil rights movement through photography, amassing an archive of thousands of images that reveal in poignant intimacy the lives of the people for whom the movement was fought, died March 28 at a hospice center in Newnan, Ga. She was 82. ... The cause was complications from cancer, said Charmaine Minniefield, an artist who described Dr. Derby as a mentor.

Dr. Derby was teaching elementary school in New York in 1963 when she uprooted her life to join the civil rights movement in the South. She was compelled to go there, she said, by the images she saw in the news of violent attacks on peaceful protesters. ... “The police had German shepherd dogs and billy clubs, and they were blasting people with fire hoses,” she told a publication of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her graduate school alma mater. “I said, ‘Oh my goodness, if people there can subject themselves to these life-threatening actions, the least I can do is go to Mississippi and use my God-given talents.' ”

[These photos are a powerful reminder of the struggles of the civil rights movement, still relevant today]

Dr. Derby went to Mississippi as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, planning to give one year of her life to the movement. In the end, she stayed for nearly a decade. She registered African Americans to vote, taught adult literacy courses and organized farming cooperatives to give Black sharecroppers independence from White landowners. With several other activists, she founded a theatrical troupe that performed free of charge before largely Black audiences.

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Grand Marie Farmers Cooperative, Lafayette, La., 1969. An image from Dr. Derby's book “A Civil Rights Journey,” published by Mack in 2021. (Doris Derby)

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Grassroots organizer, Mississippi Delta, 1968, gelatin silver print by Doris Derby (Copyright Doris Derby/High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Jeff and Valerie Levy, 2007.188)

“I wanted to show who the people are, where they lived, and what they were doing. They were the basis of the success of the civil rights movement,” she told an interviewer with the University of Illinois. “Many activities and initiatives, including forming cooperatives, were a part of that whole movement. Anything you did to challenge the status quo was considered political.”

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Last year, Dr. Derby published a book of her photography, “A Civil Rights Journey.” ... In one of her images, an African American woman in saddle shoes is depicted hanging laundry on a porch, the breeze almost visible in a white sheet billowing along the line. ... Reflecting years later on the woman in the picture, Dr. Derby remarked, “I would say that she was glad that we were there representing the struggle for equality, the struggle to … help her improve her lot in life.”

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By Emily Langer
Emily Langer is a reporter on The Washington Post’s obituaries desk. She writes about extraordinary lives in national and international affairs, science and the arts, sports, culture, and beyond. She previously worked for the Outlook and Local Living sections. Twitter https://twitter.com/emilylangerWP

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