September 2 –December 19, 2025
Picturing Mobility explores what it meant to seek leisure and travel as a Black American during the Jim Crow era. The exhibition features snapshots and travel ephemera of Black leisure experiences primarily from the mid-Atlantic during the 1920s to 1960s. From beach outings to family road trips, these images offer glimpses into everyday moments of happiness, relaxation and community, challenging dominant narratives that define the era solely through restriction and struggle. Viewers are encouraged to reflect on the emotional power of these images of Black resistance and mobility.
Public Programming
Panel discussion: Documenting Black Leisure and Preserving Community Archives
Thursday, December 4 at 5pm, Library Gallery
Followed by a reception.
Free and open to the public. No registration required.
Panelists:
Sophia Blessit-Sotilleo
Ms. Sotilleo is a seasoned academic librarian currently serving as the Vice Provost and Dean for the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery. She is a library leader known for her advocacy of intellectual freedom, First Amendment rights, and innovative, student and research-centered library services. Ms. Sotilleo is passionate about connecting people to libraries and advocating for equitable access to information and the freedom to read.
Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis joined the Maryland State Archives in 1999 and was appointed Assistant State Archivist in 2022, becoming the first person of color to hold an executive leadership position at the agency. Throughout his career, Mr. Lewis has pushed for access, efficiency, and partnership. In his current role, he oversees Appraisal and Description, Constituent and Interagency Services, and Digital Acquisition, Processing, and Publication departments. Additionally, Mr. Lewis serves as a liaison to the Information Technology department and leads Community Collection initiatives.
Ashley Minner Jones
Dr. Ashley Minner Jones is a community-based visual artist and folklorist from Baltimore, Maryland. Her interdisciplinary practice is deeply rooted in place and is focused on honoring and celebrating everyday people by lifting up their stories. Ashley’s extensive research done in collaboration with her home community—the Lumbee Indian community of East Baltimore—is being archived as “the Ashley Minner Collection” in the Albin O. Kuhn Library of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she was formerly a Professor of the Practice in the Department of American Studies and the inaugural Director of the minor in Public Humanities. Photo by Jill Fannon.
Oyinda Omoloja
Oyinda Omoloja is the Archives Assistant at Afro Charities, the nonprofit arm to the AFRO-American Newspaper Company. She liaises between the archives and the general public, providing reference services to researchers from around the world. Oyinda is committed to honoring the nuances of Black experiences and fueling curiosity as a means for deeper understanding.
Elizabeth Patton
Dr. Patton is Chair and Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies. She received her Ph.D. in 2013 from the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. Her research interests center on media history, identity and space, and how media practices have informed popular understandings of work and leisure.
Beth Saunders
Dr. Saunders is Associate Director and Curator of Special Collections and the Gallery. At UMBC, she is responsible for curatorial activities, campus and community partnerships, collection building and management, donor relationships, grant writing, and photographs. Beth previously held positions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Sotheby’s, New York. She holds a PhD and MPhil in Art History from The CUNY Graduate Center and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Curatorial talk with Dr. Elizabeth Patton
Friday, September 19 at 5pm, Library Gallery
Followed by an opening reception
Elizabeth Patton is Chair and Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies. She received her Ph.D. in 2013 from the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. Her research interests center on media history, identity and space, and how media practices have informed popular understandings of work and leisure.
Her book, Easy Living: The Rise of the Home Office (Rutgers University Press, 2020), examines how the idea of working within the home was constructed and disseminated in popular culture and by the communication and real estate industries through mass media during the 20th century. Elizabeth’s current book project, Documenting Black Leisure as a Form of Resistance, examines the history of Black leisure and tourism in the US through Jim Crow-era media. She is the recipient of the 2023 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Recent research can be found in edited volumes such as Media Crossroads: Intersections of Space and Identity in Screen Cultures (Duke University Press, 2021) and Race and the Suburbs in American Film (SUNY Press, 2021). She is the co-managing editor of Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture.
Lenders to the Exhibition
AFRO American Newspapers Archives
Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum
The Burns Collection & Archive
The People’s Archive, DC Public Library
Linda Newton
Maryland Center for History and Culture
Maryland State Archives
The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University
Morgan State University
National Museum of African American History, Archives Center
National Park Service
New York Public Library
Old Dominion University
Peter J. Cohen Collection
Courtesy of Philip J. Merrill, Nanny Jack & Co. Archives
Virginia State Parks
Yale University
The presentation of this exhibition and its public programs is supported by the Arts+ initiative, CAHSS, and an arts program grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from the Libby Kuhn Endowment Fund, as well as individual contributors.
Image caption: Addison Scurlock, Picnic, #78, [Highland Beach, Maryland], c. 1931, printed 1982. Gelatin Silver Print, The Photography Collections, UMBC (P82-17-014)
