African American Community Photographers

“The Texas African American Photography Archive is as important to scholars as it is to the community at large because it addresses political and social movements and the cultural life in Texas which includes portraiture, photojournalism, documentary, and art photography.”
~Deborah Willis, Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts at New York University

The photographs of Eugene Roquemore, Marion Butts, Elnora Frazier, Alonzo Jordan, Louise Martin, and S. Juanita Williams are part of the Texas African American Photography Archive, founded in 1995 by Kaleta Doolin and Alan Govenar. The archive provides a broad overview of African American photography in the urban and rural areas of Texas, spanning the period from the 1870s to the present and representing a variety of processes and makers. The archive is unique in its comprehensiveness, and consists of over 60,000 photographic negatives and prints and more than 20 oral histories collected from African American photographers. In 2014, the Texas African American Photography Archive was gifted to the International Center of Photography.

Eugene Roquemore

Eugene Roquemore, commercial and community photographer, was born February 3, 1921 in Timpson, Texas. He grew up in Henderson, Texas and was educated in local schools. During the Second World War he served in the Army and fought in Germany and France, receiving four Bronze Stars. After the war he attended Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, where he studied under photographer Curtis Humphrey. Roquemore briefly operated a studio in Henderson before moving to Lubbock, Texas in 1952.

In Lubbock, Roquemore worked at the Roberts Studio, owned by Sam Roberts. He later worked at Frito-Lay, Inc. from about 1966 to 1986 and held a part-time job at the bus station before retiring in 1986. From the time he arrived in Lubbock until health concerns limited his activities, Roquemore photographed freelance in the African American community.

Roquemore was married twice, the second time to Pearlie B. Roquemore, about 1950. He died on March 30, 1993.

Eugene Roquemore. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Cotton Club, Lubbock, Texas, ca. 1950s. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Curtis Humphrey's photography class, Wiley College, Marshall, Texas, 1947. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Men, women, and a baby gathering at a wedding. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Roquemore Parade Float, Henderson, Texas, ca. early 1950s. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Children, men, and women gathering in a parade in Lubbock, Texas, c. 1960s. Texas African American Photography Archive.

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Marion Butts

Marion Butts was born on April 26, 1924 in Tunis, Burleson County, Texas. He grew up in Burleson County and joined his family (who moved prior to him) in Dallas in 1941. About 1942 an uncle introduced Butts to two Dallas photographers, George Meister and Morris Landolph, with whom he apprenticed. After the photographers entered wartime service during World War II, Butts operated their business until he entered the Navy in 1944. During the war he was stationed in New Guinea and the Philippines, and upon discharge purchased used photographic equipment from his former employer and opened a studio. From about 1946–1950 Butts attended Bishop College’s extension school in Dallas, and later the main campus in Marshall for two years, doing all of the school’s photography.

Marion Butts. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Butts continued his photographic work while serving as managing editor of the African American newspaper the Dallas Express from 1954 to 1962. He returned to photography full-time at a studio he operated from 1962 to 1975. Butts received the Dallas Black Living Legend Award for Print Journalism in 1992 from the Junior Black Academy for Arts and Letters. He died in 2002.

Church Ground Breaking, Oak Cliff, Texas, 1945. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Church Bible Camp, Dallas, Texas, ca. 1960s. Texas African American Photography Archive.

NAACP Picket, Front Row: (left to right) C. Jack Clark, Travis Clark, Roosevelt Johnson; Second Row: C. B. Bunkley, unknown, George Allen; Third row: (right) Tony Davis; Fourth row: (right) Pettis Norman; Fifth row: Frank Clark. Dallas, Texas, 1965. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Boys canoeing at Camp Pinkston, Dallas YMCA, Dallas, Texas. Texas African American Photography Archive.

N.A.A.C.P. picketting Skillern's Drug Store, Texas, 1961. Texas African American Photography Archive.

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Elnora Frazier

Elnora Williams Frazier, commercial and community photographer, was born January 10, 1924 in the Fifth Ward of Houston, Texas. Raised in Houston's Second Ward, Frazier was educated in Houston schools and attended Houston Negro College. After high school, in 1942, Frazier attended the Teal School of Photography, taught by A. C. Teal of Houston, and was employed by Teal for fifteen years.

Frazier left the Teal Studio after A.C. Teal's death in 1956. During the late 1950s and through the 1960s and 1970s, Frazier worked in Houston for Courtesy Photo Supply, where she did black and white finishing. During the 1960s she also worked for Floyd Photo. In 1982, she began work for National Photographic Labs as a printer and remained there until her retirement in 1989. During her professional career Frazier also contracted work for friends and family. Elnora Williams married Marshall Frazier in 1948 and had one daughter, Marsha, born in 1951. Frazier died in 2005.

Elaine Williams, niece of Elnora Frazier, Houston, Texas, ca. 1960s. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Unidentified couple, handtinted print. Houston, Texas, ca. 1970s. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Funeral, Houston, Texas, ca. 1960s. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Scanned Negative

Marsha Frazier, ca. 1966, Houston, Texas. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Handtinted Print

Marsha Frazier, ca. 1966, Houston, Texas. Texas African American Photography Archive.

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Alonzo Jordan

Alonzo W. Jordan, photographer and barber, was born February 26, 1903 to Estella and Neeland Jordan in Sabine Pass, Texas. He moved to Jasper at age 2 and was raised by his grandparents and attended Jasper Negro School. In 1929 he entered the barbering profession and established a shop in Jasper. Jordan studied photography under L. A. Simmons in Wiergate, Texas, and purchased his first professional camera in 1943. He simultaneously operated a photo studio and barbershop for forty-one years. Alonzo Jordan died in January 1984.

During the studio’s operation, Alonzo Jordan photographed almost every graduating class and school event at local Jasper schools and for many elementary and high schools in about a seventy-five mile radius. An active Prince Hall Mason, Jordan also documented black Freemasonry in East Texas for many years.

Jordan was married to Helen Armstrong Limbrick (b. 1912). Mrs. Jordan accompanied him on most shooting assignments outside Jasper and was responsible for the studio’s record-keeping and client information.

Connie Thomas (third from left) and family in corn field, 1950. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Homecoming parade, Jasper, Texas, 1956. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Irene Seals, Charles Barnes, Alpha Adams, Catherine Barnes, Bernice McFarland, unidentified man, Thedro Mitchell, Bobby Greer, Alice Jordan, and Claude Adams at a party, 1955. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Man talking on telephone, March 20, 1951. Texas African American Photography Archive.

L. A. Simmons with wife and daughter, March 25, 1957. Texas African American Photography Archive.

A short video by Alan Govenar interviewing Alonzo Jordan's family and friends about his life and work in Jasper, Texas.

Louise Martin

Louise O. Martin, Houston, Texas professional photographer, was born January 9, 1911 in Brenham, Texas. She was raised in Brenham by her parents, Barbara Harris and Vender Martin Harris, and in about 1930 moved to Houston with her mother. She attended high school in Houston and then the Art Institute of Chicago and Denver University, where she studied art and photography. She graduated from Denver University with a degree in photography.

During the Second World War she did freelance photography and was married briefly. In 1946 she opened Louise Martin Art Studios, which she operated until her retirement in the early 1990s. Louise Martin died in 1995.

During her career, Martin photographed Houston African American society and visiting celebrities and made standard portraits. By her own estimate, perhaps three-fourths of her clientele were women. She also shot news assignments for the black-owned Houston newspapers The Informer and the Forward Times.

Louise Martin press photo, Houston, Texas, 1969. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Martin Luther King, Jr. funeral procession, Atlanta, Georgia, April 9, 1968. Texas African American Photography Archive.

Coretta Scott King, Houston, Texas, 1970. Texas African American Photography Archive.

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S. Juanita Williams

S. Juanita Williams, professional photographer, was born November 16, 1926 in Stafford, Texas. One of six sisters and three brothers, she was raised by grandparents in Stafford until age six and then in Houston by her mother. She attended Phyllis Wheatley High School in Houston and as a child became acquainted with the A. C. Teal family’s Teal Studio.

Williams worked at the Teal Studio from 1941 to 1951 and attended The Teal School of Photography from 1942 to 1944. During that period she learned standard photographic techniques, including lab chemistry, retouching, and hand-coloring. After working a year at photo-finishing in Seattle in 1952 she moved back to Houston and again worked for the Teal Studio until 1954, when she began work at Courtesy Photo, also in Houston. Williams’s employment at Courtesy Photo lasted until 1962, the year she started her own studio out of her home. In the 1970s and 1980s Williams also worked for Nita’s Photos. During the 1950s and 1960s she trained for and held other jobs, which included nursing assistance and life insurance underwriting.