When I think of black personhood, I think of this dude here.

This picture is held by the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. It’s from 1942 and showcases a New Year’s gathering of the 21 Night Hawks, a Little Rock male society club. I know nothing about the club or its history. But I fell in love with this man’s expression.

The bottle in his hand. The smile. The confused look of the lady sitting next to him because he probably said something crazy right before the camera flashed.

The mistake I made with my last blog, For the Dead and the Dying, was to become an ambulance chaser of black men destroyed by the state; I feared that would also be my fate, despite all my education and striving. But only focusing on that leaves out the party where we take boss pictures and say crazy things. It misses out on a vital piece of black personhood.

Est. 1865 is a blog dedicated to exploring black personhood. I am working on a longform piece that will hopefully clarify what that means and why it is a more accurate term than “citizenship” to describe black folk in America. But I also want to post pictures of joy and celebration, and to write posts and journalism that explore how we have developed a beautiful and resilient culture in the shadow of full citizenship. I want to show how black personhood has always done this since 1865.

Comment and retweet how you do joy. Post pictures of black joy too!

Major post coming this Saturday at the latest.