 |  |
|
susojourner.com
501 Washington Studios
315 N. Lake Avenue, Duluth Minnesota 55806
218-726-0341
susojo@yahoo.com
Sue [Lorenzi] Sojourner is a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. She worked in Holmes County, Mississippi for the five years from fall 1964 through summer 1969. She is working on a memoir entitled, “FREEDOM: Blacks Transforming Themselves—Growing a Grassroots Movement in 1960s Mississippi as Seen by One (Transformed) White Middle-Class Outside Agitator.” The memoir tells of the real dangers and fears that the local leaders experienced and how they built one of the most effective grassroots Movements in the state.
She has produced two photography exhibitions using reproductions of her original 1960s photographs, and descriptions of the Movement events that she witnessed.
Notes from Sue:
Since 1996, I've lived and worked in Duluth, Minnesota in a housing cooperative of nearly 40 artists. Being surrounded by artists in a building with a public art gallery has been critical to realizing myself as an artist and photographer.
PHOTOGRAPHY
My husband Henry and I spent five years as white "outside agitators" in the local civil rights Movement in Holmes County, Mississippi. During our first years in Holmes — the most dangerous ones of 1964-65 — survival was as much our work as voter registration, the community center, school integration, and creating the Freedom Democratic Party. For working organizers, taking photos was not a priority — staying alive was of greater interest. So, not until the last year of our five in the county did I make the images to document the times. In the late 1990s I became recognized as a photographer, based on the 100s of black-and- white stills I took of Movement and community people in Holmes County.
My first public works are the several documentary photography exhibits I've created and shown at art museums, public schools, community centers, storefronts, and colleges and universities. See the Photography and Exhibits pages for more information on those.
WRITING
When I moved here from D.C., I wanted a place to write the book I'd been carrying in my head, heart, and many boxes since the 1960s. In the ‘80s, when Henry died, the book became up to me to finish. I needed to organize and complete my writings on the work I'd witnessed.
I wanted to publish the words of the local leaders that I'd taken down in the midst of the struggle — to put together the story of their organizing achievement. Strong, growing, they lived through real danger and fear. They survived and built one of the most effective grassroots Movements in the state. They'd changed their lives — not just for each individually, but for all their people. I'm not the only one to call the activity one of the strongest in the state. Mississippi civil rights historian John Dittmer and Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party leader Lawrence Guyot agree with me on that issue.
By fall 2003, I had a manuscript draft, “Listening: The Local People Speak on The Movement and Their Lives — Turnbow, Carnegie, Hayes, and the First 14: Getting Organized in Holmes Co., Mississippi, 1963-1967.”
My work has progressed with the help of several people and from Fall 2008 until 2010, I have worked on a memoir, now in draft form entitled, “FREEDOM: Blacks Transforming Themselves—Growing a Grassroots Movement in 1960s Mississippi as Seen by One (Transformed) White Middle-Class Outside Agitator.”
PERSPECTIVE
Lately, I focus my lenses on the people in today's African-American, peace, labor, feminist, and lesbian movements in the Duluth area. At the same time, trees, rocks, and water call to my camera, though usually as individuals rather than in landscapes. As always, I'm drawn to people, their faces, their whole bodies, living their lives. Making images of all these Beings, then telling their names is my way of honoring their existence.
Sue Sojourner
A note about my name: In 1972, Henry and I legally changed our names from Lorenzi to Sojourner. I sign my Holmes County photography and writing work as “Sue [Lorenzi] Sojourner.
Photographs above (left) Hartman Turnbow, (center) Rep. Robert G. Clark and Mary Hightower, and (right) Alma Mitchell Carnegie
All photos (c) Sue [Lorenzi] Sojourner.