Portrait of Betty and Willis Coles by William Bullard from about 1902. Courtesy of Frank Morrill, Clark University and the Worcester Art MuseumUnstable. Criminal. Impoverished. Absentee fathers. Neglectful mothers. “A tangle of pathology,” as the Moynihan Report, a 1965 study on Black poverty, put it. For decades, the Black family has been denigrated as dysfunctional. When mass media exploded in the late 19th century, degrading images of Black Americans – as inferior, clownish and dangerous – sa
WORCESTER After three years, 1,250 volunteer hours, 22 directional signs and kiosks, 23 mileage marker posts and two murals, the East-West Trail is taking a new direction.
The East-West Trail is a 14-mile cross-city hike, stretching from Lake Quinsigamond to Cascades Park. The trail, while winding through timeless nature and numerous historical spots in the city, is a fairly new project, born in 2015 as a patchwork of green spaces and city streets.
The trail project was spearheaded by Worcester-based nonprofit Park Spirit, a volunteer-run group established in 1988 by Colin Novick of the Greater Worcester Land Trust and Rick Miller, former Park Spirit president.
When mass media exploded in the late 19th century, degrading images of Black Americans – as inferior, clownish and dangerous – saturated nearly every aspect of popular culture, from music to advertising.
The evolution of radio, film and television in the 20th century only amplified demeaning images, providing “proof” to white Americans of Black inferiority and a justification for denying them their rights.
Today, many of these same tired images persist and continue to feed baseless perceptions. A 2017 study showed that the news media continue to “inaccurately portray Black families as more poor, criminal and unstable than white families.”
When those malicious images first started to proliferate, Black Americans found an especially effective way to resist. They seized upon the camera to represent themselves, using photographs to depict who they really were. Seemingly a “magical instrument” for “the displaced and marginalized,” as critic bell hooks writes, the