The Black List: From Bad to Good

On a late February morning in 2005, photographer Timothy Greenfeld-Sanders was having breakfast with Pulitzer and Noble Prize winning author Toni Morrison. Morrison suggested that they should consider doing a portrait book on the black female singers she had auditioned for the opera she was preparing.

Morrison's comments prompted Greenfield-Sanders to think about all the extremely talented, important black  Americans he had photographed over the years including such luminaries as Morrison and Colin Powell.

Greenfield-Sanders contacted his friend film critic Elvis Mitchell to talk about the idea of a broad-based documentary film,  photography, and book project centered around such luminaries. The pair began jotting names down on napkins and by dessert they had 175 deserving subjects. 

Mitchell even had the perfect name for the project. "We should call it the Black List. We need to make it a good thing to be on the black list," he said.

And so, eventually reduced to 50 Black Americans, the Black List became a reality. Both the giant portraits and the film are currently on exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. In addition to Morrison and Powell, the show includes dignitaries from the worlds of entertainment, the arts, sports, business, and politics..

Some of those portrayed are well-known such as Chris Rock, Sean Coombs, Whoopi Goldberg, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Serena Williams. Others, mostly from the world of business, such as Suzanne de Ponse or Steve Stoute aren't household names.  De Ponse began her career as an out-spoken music booker for a New York City Club. In the mid 1960s, she was having trouble booking acts from Motown. Finally, she was able, through a connection with one of the Supremes, to reach Motown head Barry Gordy. Gordy was so taken with de Ponse's abilities that he offered her a job with Motown, who was moving its corporate offices from Detroit to Los Angeles. While on the West Coast, dePonse heard a group of 5 singing brothers she thought Motown had to sign. Despite reservations, Gordy, at de Ponse's insistence, signed the group - The Jackson 5 - and thus was born the career of one Michael Jackson. Stoute also began his career in the music industry. However, he was able to parlay his success there into creating the leading black advertising agency in the county. And while Shuate's name may not be well known, a 5-note jingle he created certainly is as he is the originator of the "I'm Loving It" commercials for McDonald's.

Today, curator Ann Shumard conducted a tour of the exhibit, pausing before several of the portraits to explain in detail how the project came to be and its importance to the art world.

"This is really a portrait of America at a moment in time from 2005 to 2009," Shumard said. "I like that it is not just all people that we know, but also people that we should know about."

For his part, Greenfield-Sanders realizes that with so many deserving subjects and only 50 pictured, there would be some controversy over omissions.

"Thousands of people belong in The Black List Project," he writes in the exhibit program. "We wanted to present a wide range of accomplishment and an equal number of men and women. In the end, we squeezed 50 highly accomplished Americans into three films. Yes 'so and so' belongs in here. We agree!"

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Being Black History Month, February makes an ideal time to visit The Black List. However, if you can't make it then, the exhibit will be on display until April 22.