In 1906, the Hooks Brothers, Robert and Henry, started their family-run photography business, which documented the rich and complex history of Black Memphis and Memphians. For 76 years, they captured images of notable profiles like Booker T. Washington, W.C. Handy, and Robert R. Church, but perhaps more importantly, they captured ordinary life and the events that accompany it, from graduations to weddings and birthday parties to neighborhood gatherings. A select number of these photos from the archives of the Flow Museum of Art & Culture will be on display at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library for the month of January.
Of the importance of these photos, Jay Etkin, artist, gallery owner, and founder of the Flow Museum, says, “I know people look for the [photos] that have this wonderful dollar-value — a great portrait of a famous person has a lot of value. A portrait of somebody’s graduation from high school is a bit of history. People don’t attach monetary value to it, but it has community value, cultural value.”
Etkin started collecting photos and photo albums as a hobby in the 1960s. “I owned photo albums of other people’s families, and I kept thinking what an odd thing this is, that somehow all these families lost track of their family history,” he says. “It made me very much aware of the preciousness of tapping into other people’s histories and lives.” In dissecting the albums, he found notes, stamps, and signatures, clues to the stories behind the photos. “I was delving into these lives of people I had no personal connection to.”
But a lack of personal connection does not equate to a lack of relevance, Etkin says, so when he got his hands on the Hooks Brothers archives, he knew he had to share them with the public and engage people in the collective memories. “What value is there of historical photographs if they are hidden away?” he ponders.
“I had heard about the Hooks Brothers a number of years ago,” Etkin says, “and to this day, I ask people from all walks of life, ‘Are you aware of the Hooks brothers archive?’ And a vast number of folks have said to me, I don’t know anything about that. They know about Ernest Withers, but the Hooks Brothers were here longer than anyone else photographically speaking.”
While at his gallery one day, Etkin showed a visitor a Hooks photo of the 1926 Booker T. Washington football team. The photo stirred up memories of her father who was on the team in the 1940s, he says, and she started tearing up. “The photo was way before [her father’s] time and it still elicited an emotional response,” Etkin says. “That’s a beautiful thing to me. An old picture can have just as much impact if you find ways to connect the general public with its history.” The subjects in the Hooks photos might not be glamorous celebrities or recognizable historical figures, but they shaped the fabric of the city and the families within it. Their significance cannot be diminished, and the Hooks Brothers honored that and preserved their memory in each beautifully captured photograph.
After digitizing the glass negatives, Etkin says, “I had so many wow moments. I’ve looked at the negatives and they didn’t have much impact, and [once digitized] now you see these figures and clothing and the faces and all of a sudden you go, ‘This is unbelievable.’ The purest of pure gold is in front of you. … They’re just exquisite.”
After their stint at the Benjamin L. Hooks library, the photos will move to other satellite locations as a part of the Flow Museum’s initiative. “It’s a history museum, a research museum, and an educational facility,” Etkin says. “But people can be intimidated by the idea of museums, so we’re bringing the museum to the communities.
“I tell people this all the time,” he continues, “I love dusty old artifacts, and I could live with them and I actually do, but the museum can’t exist on its collections alone. It’s what you do with the collections, making it relevant to today, making it community-oriented, moving it into the 21st century.” And by engaging the community and stimulating discussion, Etkin hopes that his selection of Hooks Brothers photos can do just that.
