Occupations of Black Americans 1900-2021
Occupations of Black Americans 1900 - 2021. Screenprint, chine collé, and archival pigment print on Saunders Waterford paper. 28 x 22 inches. ©Villalongo Studio LLC. Courtesy William Villalongo, Shraddha Ramani and Island Press, St Louis, MO.
The image shows the changing face of Black participation in various occupations since Du Bois’s original work in 1900 until today. The timeline runs from 1900 at the bottom to 2021 at the top. The colorful plumes fluctuate between thick and then as Black participation in each of the eleven categories shifts. This image updates two original Du Bois data portraits which show occupation categories and Black participation nationally and in the state of Georgia.The image is a simple bar chart that has been manipulated to smooth out the jagged zig-zag of straight lines into curves suggesting colorful flows through time.