Backstage: An Unfurling of the JPC | Black Archives & Memory

Talk in Backstage: An Unfurling of the JPC series
A photo of a 1970s office in brown and yellow hues with two women at a desk in the foreground looking at a card catalog drawer with more desks, filing cabinets, and bookshelves in the background

JPC librarians Carlene Smythe (left) and Henrietta Thomas check information for an editor while staff conduct research in the background, Ebony magazine, September 1972. Photograph by Alexandre Georges. Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

May 15, 2025

10am PT

Online

Free

Tickets are free, but registration is required. Once you register, you'll receive an email detailing how to join via Zoom.

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About

Visionary librarian Doris Saunders established the Johnson Publishing Company's (JPC) meticulously organized and unparalleled photo files beginning in 1949 to support the editorial needs of iconic publications like Ebony and Jet. Under her successor, photo editor Basil Phillips, the collection significantly grew as the company extended its reach. Together, their work preserved both published and unpublished images of historically significant events, celebrities, political movements, and everyday moments of Black life, culture, and achievement spanning from the mid-1940s through the early 2000s.

This panel features Getty archivist Steven D. Booth, artist and executive director of Afro Charities Savannah Wood, and Dorothy Berry, digital curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. They will highlight the remarkable legacies of Saunders, Phillips, and other Black archivists, the invisible labor of preserving cultural heritage, and discuss why Black archives are essential resources for documenting and celebrating the African American experience.

The Johnson Publishing Company Archive is owned by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and J. Paul Getty Trust. In 2019, a consortium made up of the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution acquired the JPC archive. In 2022, ownership was transferred to NMAAHC and the J. Paul Getty Trust, with a commitment to make the archive available to the public by 2029.

The conversation will be available on the Getty Research Institute YouTube channel following the event.

Visit the Getty Research Institute's Exhibitions and Events page for more free programs.

    1. Dorothy Berry

      Digital curator, National Museum of African American History and Culture

      An award-winning archivist, Berry’s work focuses on digital discovery and interpretation. Her forthcoming book, The House Archives Built, and Other Thoughts on Black Archival Possibility, will be the inaugural release from We Here Press.

    2. Savannah G. M. Wood

      Executive director, Afro Charities

      Wood is a graduate of the University of Southern California; the 2025 Tabb Center Public Humanities Fellow; member of the 2023 class of The Leadership Baltimore; and a 2022 Creative Capital finalist. Like four generations of ancestors before her, she lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland, making, promoting, interpreting, and preserving Black history. She is executive director of Afro Charities, which is building a public research center for the 132-year-old AFRO American Newspapers’ extensive archives.

    3. Steven D. Booth

      Archivist, Getty Research Institute

      Throughout his career, Booth has worked to preserve and make accessible high-profile collections related to the Black experience such as the papers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the presidential records of Barack Obama, and the Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Booth is an alumnus of Morehouse College, Simmons College, the Archives Leadership Institute, and a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists.

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