The “I, Too, Am Harvard” photo campaign explores the diverse experience that black students at Harvard have to face. Here are 21 of the images.
Carol Powell / Via itooamharvard.tumblr.com
A group of black students at Harvard are fed up with the institutional racism they say they have experienced, and are speaking out against it through a commanding photography project on Tumblr.
"Our voices often go unheard on this campus, our experiences are devalued, our presence is questioned," the website describes. "This project is our way of speaking back, of claiming this campus, of standing up to say: We are here."
Carol Powell / Via itooamharvard.tumblr.com
The Tumblr is part of a larger campus campaign that all started with a play written by sophomore Kimiko Matsuda-Lawrence, pictured above.
Matsuda-Lawrence and other members of the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College, Harvard's older existing black organization, came up with the idea last year around spring break. She conducted 40 interviews with black student on campus for an independent study last semester; those interviews are the basis of the play, called "I, Too, Am Harvard," which will premiere on March 7.
She emphasized to BuzzFeed that "I, Too, Am Harvard" is a collective black community project that doesn't yet reflect that experience of all students of color.
"We want to build a larger movement for students of color in general, but this play is for Harvard's Black Arts Festival," said Matsuda-Lawrence. "The project is coming out of the black community on campus."
As part of the campaign, Harvard sophomore Carol Powell, a fellow Kuumba member, photographed 63 black students holding boards with micro-aggressions and racist remarks they have heard on campus. Some chose to write messages to their peers.
Speaking about her own portrait from the photo campaign, Matsuda-Lawrence told BuzzFeed that while walking through Harvard Yard last Friday night with black friends, they were approached by two white males who appeared to be drunk. "One of them came right up in my face and yelled, 'CAN YOU READ?'" she said. "This confrontation is just one of many instances in which black intelligence is questioned on this campus."
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