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Carrie Mae Weems: You know, it's like–
I open up this box;

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it’s like opening up
a can of worms.

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You know what I mean?

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It’s just like the most amazing–
it was the most amazing project.

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There were a group
of photographs

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that I knew that I
absolutely had to use.

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I had been thinking about them
for years and years and years.

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I had lectured on them in
any number of contexts

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in my classrooms
for a really long time.

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And there were a
group of them that

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came out of the
Harvard archives.

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This was one of them,
a very early daguerreotype

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that had been done in
North Carolina,

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South Carolina,
of a family of slaves.

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But it was the kind of project
that allowed me to think again

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about the history of black
subjects in photography as well,

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how the black body had been
used photographically.

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The final pieces are with texts,
and the text is etched into glass.

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They look very different once
they're behind glass

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because the glass and the text
becomes really, really important

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to how the audience is being
asked to engage with the photographs.

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And so there were these
beginning images that seemed

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to me to really crystallize and
compress in four images

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the history of African-Americans
in the history of photography.

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There are 30 photographs
within the series.

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All of the photographs for
the Getty series are–

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are appropriated images
from other historical sources.

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Harvard threatened to sue me
for the use of the first photographs

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that I showed you.

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So I thought,
Harvard is going to sue me

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for using these images of
black people in their collection,

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the richest university
in the world.

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I think that I don't have
really a legal case,

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but maybe I have a
moral case that could be made

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that might be really useful
to carry out in public.

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And so after worrying about it
and thinking about it,

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I called them up,
and I said,

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"I think actually your suing me
would be a really good thing.

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You should, and we should have
this conversation in court.

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I think it would be
really instructive for

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any number of reasons
and certainly for artists

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that are really engaged in the
act of appropriation

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who think that there
is a larger story to tell."

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Harvard then finally thought,
"No, I guess we won't sue her.”

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And then they asked me to,
every time a sell was made,

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that I would have to pay them
for the use of the photographs.

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And then they bought the
photographs for their collection.

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So it was like,
"Okay, well, you bought 'em.

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Do I have to pay you?
Do I have to pay you too?"

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I mean– I mean,
I’m a little confused.

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I come from this big,
wonderful, crazy family of,

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I don't know,
300 or so of us.

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So I started thinking about this
relationship of me to my family

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and how to sort of
tease that out.

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It was important for me
because I really needed

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to understand something
about the nature of

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my own being and
my own voice and

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really where I come from.

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My father was a really great,
great, great storyteller, and,

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you know, narrative and
storytelling was in the blood.

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I just came from
a family reunion.

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My aunt Nellie, who's sort of
the chronicler of our family,

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put together this really
beautiful scrapbook.

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And I love this photograph.

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I grew up with this picture.

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This is sort of like the anchor,
the bedrock of my family.

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This is my beautiful mother
and all of her sisters,

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and I’m crazy about them all.

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This is a photograph
of my grandfather.

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My grandfather was Jewish
and Native American,

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and he married my grandmother
who was this–

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you know, this black woman,
and they had 11 children together.

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Papa was this sort of
amazing guy,

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who, because he basically
passed for white,

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was able to employ his
entire family in Portland, Oregon.

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And there were times when
he would take Osie, my grandmother,

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with him for a job,
and they would fire him

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because they realized that
he was married to a black woman.

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Or sometimes when my grandfather
had all of the kids in the car,

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white people would
pass by and say,

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"What are you doing with
all them niggers in your car?"

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They were just sort of
extraordinary people,

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and what they put in motion
is still there.

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And my mother and her sisters have
carried on that amazing tradition.

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I moved away from home
when I was 16.

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I went to my father and said,

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"Dad, I think I’m ready to
move out on my own.”

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He said, "you think that you could,
like, move out and pay your rent

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and buy your food
and all that by yourself

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and not come back home,
like, every other day for food

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or rent or a safe haven?"

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and I said, "Yeah, I think I can do that."

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And he said, "Well, if you think you
can do that, then go do that.

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If you think that you need to
come back home after you've tried it,

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you are always, of course,
welcome to come back home,

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but if you think you can
take care of yourself,

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then go take care of yourself."

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And I left home, and
I haven’t been back since.

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And so I went to San Francisco
with my girlfriend.

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I had been interested in dance
and theater to a certain extent.

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I mean, I just knew how to
dance really well.

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And I started dancing with
the famous and extraordinary Ann Halprin.

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Ann was already really
interested in ideas about peace

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and using dance as a way
to bridge different cultures together.

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I didn't know what one
could really do with dance.

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I knew that it was really the
visual arts that somehow

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would be more my calling.

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And then I had a boyfriend
who was a photographer,

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and he would film all of our parties
and happenings and rallies

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and demonstrations.

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We were all radicals,
living in San Francisco.

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And he introduced me to photography.

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I was daydreaming about
the Birmingham Riots in the 1960s.

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And the image started moving.

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I was thinking about one particular
photograph made by Charles Moore,

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a photograph that I love,

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and Charles Moore didn’t really want
me to use his photograph.

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And so I thought,

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"Okay, then I’m gonna bring
that photograph to life.

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I’ll construct that moment."

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And so I went to Birmingham,
and I pulled out some students,

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and we did a whole series of actions,

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and out of that came this idea
to do an entire series of

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re-creations around the idea of 1968.

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I realized that we were
at this incredible moment,

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that 40 years had elapsed,

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that Martin Luther King had
died 40 years ago,

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and that it would be important to
look at some things that happened

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just before that and
just after that

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so that you would have to
look at the assassination of Martin.

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You would have to look at the
assassination of Malcolm.

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You would have to look at the
assassination of Medgar Evers,

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of Robert F. Kennedy,
John F. Kennedy,

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this idea of how then we
arrived at this incredible moment.

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And then I realized that Barack Obama,
of course, was running for

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the presidency of the United States.

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This incredible, tumultuous,
brutal history is absolutely what

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makes him possible,
that he could not be in that position

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without the death of
all those people,

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and so that he is literally
standing on the ashes

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and the spirit of all those
things that have come before.

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And I just thought if
I didn’t look at those things now,

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if I didn't look at all of
that kind of trauma

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and the mourning,
you know,

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and the sadness of the history
of the last 40 years, then,

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you know, I really wasn't
worth my salt.

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I don't know if this work
will be important,

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but I know that it's
important for me,

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that it was important for me
to look at this history,

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to really think about where
we are now, contemporarily.

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And it was important for me
to consider deeply in my heart

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how we had arrived
at this moment.

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And so then the idea that
I would ask a number of students

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to assume the roles for themselves

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and thereby come to
know something about that history–

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all those things were really
very important for me to make.

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Student Gyun Hur:
This is the assassination

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of Robert Kennedy.

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I think it's, I believe, like 1968.

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I acted in a part of being a busboy,
and I think his name is Juan Romero.

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At that time,
when he got shot,

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the busboy,
who met him previously,

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he ran up to him and
asked if he was okay

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and gave him a rosary,
so that was the part that I reenacted.

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As an immigrant daughter,

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as somebody who never
experienced it before–

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my parents don't know
really much about this whole thing,

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and so for me to just come
into that place of understanding

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what exactly happened,
I think that was the hardest.

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Student Ashley Vieira:
This is Kent State,

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and I’m the girl in the photograph.

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It was an extremely emotional situation.

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Carrie has this ability to
evoke emotion in people,

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just from her voice,
and it was so soothing.

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But when I got up there,
at first I was really nervous,

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and I wasn't sure how
I should become sad

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and become in that moment.

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And then once she started talking to me,
just all these emotions fled,

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and I–
and I cried really hard.

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Gallery Viewer 1:
Veronica, the one with

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the Kent State, I remember that.

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Gallery viewer 2:
Oh, do you?

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Gallery Viewer 1:
You know–

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yeah, I remember that.

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I remember that actual photograph.

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I mean, I remember
watching it on television, you know.

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Yeah, some of these are just–
I mean, just–

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so these things have another
kind of pitch to it, you know?

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Carrie Mae Weems:
What came out of

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these photographs,
which is, you know,

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what I really, really love,

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is indeed another way of working,
this idea of constructing history.

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Not only did I want the students
to be doing all the research and

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studying the reenactment:
when did the students at Kent State die?

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Who was there?
What was her name?

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Who were the other students
that were killed?

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They had to do all that work,
but then I thought,

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let’s construct them in a
very sort of high, artificial way,

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and let’s put everybody on a podium,
let’s put everything in there,

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and then let's show all the tracks.

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Let’s show all the lights.
Let’s just show everything.

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Let’s just sort of show that all of
the stuff is being constructed.

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Film voice over:
In this constructed place,

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our classroom.

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We revisit the past.

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The students examine the facts
and will participate

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in the construction of history,

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a history that has been
told to them by others.

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But now, with their own bodies,
they engage their own dark terrain,

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their own winter.

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Carrie Mae Weems:
The video that goes along

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with these photographs begins

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00:11:50,440 --> 00:11:53,574
and ends with Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama.

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So then I thought,
"Oh...oh, oh, oh.

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Well– well, that's the other–
that's part two, isn't it?

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That’s part two.”

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So that's what we're actually doing today.

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-Okay, ladies, let's go.

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Very much in sort of a similar style,
John McCain, Barack Obama,

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Sarah Palin as a beauty queen.

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I’ve got all these little bombshells
coming to sort of dress up

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in high heels and fishnets,
and they'll all walk around.

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And now I think that Obama is
indeed the president of the United States.

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For me, it gives the work just
that much more credibility,

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right, you know, that it has
actually a success at the end of it.

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-Each of you in turn,
you’re going to, like,

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come walking towards
the camera. Okay?

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That's one of the things
that we’re going to do.

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So we have to set for that.

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You're going to start
walking in this direction.

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We may have to--

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The other day,
I came home from Chicago,

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and I immediately plugged in
my tape recorder,

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and I made a series of
phone calls to a number of people,

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all kinds of people,
that I’ve been in touch with

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over the last many, many years,
to ask them about

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what they were thinking
at that moment that it seemed

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that maybe Barack was
actually going to be president.

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I spoke to people who,
for the first time ever, said,

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"My country, my country, my country."

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Time...

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Because I think, really,
it’s sort of, like,

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really claiming yourself,
and it's a certain confidence.

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And you're all involved in theater,
so you're all going to be working

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in front of other people.

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But I think it's even bigger.

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I think it's really about connecting
with a story that is larger than you.

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It’s not about you.
It’s not about you.

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We’re using these bodies to
talk about something else

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that's much bigger
than we are. Okay?

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And so find confidence in the
historical story that we're gonna

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use your body to
express this story through.

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In one moment,
there was an enormous shift

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in the American imagination–
in one moment.

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People who had never considered–
African-Americans who had

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never considered this to be home,
this to be a place that represented them,

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suddenly said, “my country" and
"my president” and

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"my, my, my, my, ours."