Let Your Motto Be Resistance ~ African American Portraits

Dorothy Dandridge, the star of the 1954 film “Carmen Jones.” / Photo: Copyright Halsman Estate/Courtesy National Portrait Gallery

From the washingtonpost.com, a gallery of African American Portraits. Let your motto be resistance.. I like that. To let your motto represent you, your character and beliefs. My motto, which I’ve had for a very long time, “Stay hard, yet soft.” Simply put: Be forever hard against injustice and have compassion for those who deserve it.

The photographic exhibition, “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits,” celebrates African American political and cultural figures. The exhibition, which was organized by the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Portrait Gallery, is on view at the Portrait Gallery until March 2, 2008. (Smithsonian Institution)

If any of you guys have a motto, please share it.. this could get good.

Some portraits include:

Martin Luther King, Jr., his wife Coretta Scott King and their daughter: King led a mass struggle for racial equality that doomed segregation and changed America forever.

Jimi Hendrix: expanded the range and vocabulary of the electric guitar into areas no musician had ever ventured before. His creative drive, technical ability and painterly application of such effects as wah-wah and distortion forever transformed the sound of rock and roll.

Richard Pryor: highly influential, and always controversial. His out take on humor on African American life in the USA during the 1970s was razor sharp brilliance on the cutting edge.

Josephine Baker: a dancer, singer, actress and a comedian all in one, Josephine Baker was the first black female entertainer to break through racial prejudice in Europe and the United States.

Billie Holiday: considered by many to be the greatest jazz vocalist of all time. Her bluesy vocal style brought a slow and rough quality to the jazz standards that were often upbeat and light.

First Lady of Song Ella Fitzgerald: personified jazz for more than 60 years. A beautiful voice, achieve perfect intonation, a flawless sense of rhythm.

Legendary tap dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson: invented a new way to tap, a man of professional genius.

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Boxer Joe Louis, ready for the ring in this 1935 photograph / Photo: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution