A personal call for photo submissions for Sept. Club members exhibit

When you think of our right to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” what comes up for you? Pride, yearning, patriotism, grief? For me as a daughter of enslaved, resisting and foundational Africans who united families with Europeans rejecting whiteness, it is a dynamic upswell of all of the above. Images of present joy and struggle flow through my mind like the deep fresh water of a mighty river crashing into a dark, salty sea surging with the promise of something new.

As the National Press Club marks 250 years since the birth of the United States, our members photo exhibit offers a perfect opportunity to share some of those images I have collected through the lenses of my camera and iPhone that are always snapping in service of my own pursuit.

On behalf of the Club’s Photography Team, I encourage you to join me in sharing your own photographic reflections with the submission window open July 31 – Aug. 15. The theme presents a great chance for all Club members to express our interpretation of the heart of our embattled Constitution, to process and share our experience of the complex historic moment we are creating together.

For more information on submitting up to five images, download the exhibit instructions or chat with Photo Team Chair Alan Kotok at the Photo-Video Journalists Community Night July 27 in the Truman Lounge off the Reliable Source restaurant.

With unprecedented authoritarian pressure on the press and the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma’s findings that up to 59% of journalists in some sectors experience PTSD symptoms, I am proud to be a 22-year member of a club that leads on amplifying and protecting the voices of journalists. From President Mark Schoeff Jr. ringing the bell on Don Lemon’s arrest and reminding the DOJ that “a free and independent press serves the people, not the government,” to offering members healing mental health resources, I see the exhibit as an extension of those vital benefits.

As a longtime participant who has shared in the blossoming of the annual photo exhibit in richness and impact under the leadership of Team Chair Alan Kotok, I can’t wait to see our collective vision displayed in September across four screens in the Club’s lobby.

To spark your participation, I suggest brewing some tea, taking a few deep breaths and focusing on intention — or you could just let your mind wander through your most meaningful or artful images. I intend to honor the Haudenosaunee Confederation’s Great Law of Peace upon which our Constitution was based, minus the vital principle of human equality, as acknowledged by the Senate in 1987. Same for my teenage relatives Charles and Walter Proctor, who died fighting in the Revolutionary War, with thanks to Dr. Bonita Gilliam for her scholarship.

While generative AI images are not permitted, I might honor them in spirit with a photo of my ancestors’ names on the African American Civil War Memorial. Maybe I’ll share that photo of a National Guard soldier flashing me a peace sign, or maybe just the everyday Black Girl Magic of reclaiming my joy in a field of sunflowers.

Whatever you decide to contribute, I look forward to seeing not only a snapshot of our present, but a hint of our path forward, together.