A collection of 75,000 photographs capturing Black life in Memphis over four decades has been donated to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the National Civil Rights Museum. The images, taken by Hooks Brothers Studios, include both iconic figures like B.B. King and Mahalia Jackson and everyday moments such as weddings, graduations, and family portraits.
Andrea and Rodney Herenton, who purchased the archive, called it a “priceless inheritance.” Speaking to The New York Times, Andrea said the donation would help the collection “inspire and live and breathe and teach and connect the past to the present” as it enters the public domain.
The Hooks archive reflects a fuller picture of Memphis beyond its association with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. “People still found their way through tribulation,” said Russell Wigginton, president of the National Civil Rights Museum. “There’s no party like a Memphis party… there’s nothing like when people are in community here, trust me.”
Founded in 1907 by Henry A. Hooks Sr. and Robert B. Hooks on Beale Street, the studio documented Black life during the Jim Crow era. “It documents you. It documents your family. It documents your community,” said University of Memphis art historian Ernestine Jenkins, who found a 1937 class photo of her mother in the archive.
C. Rose Smith, assistant curator at the Brooks Museum, said the Hooks brothers took special care with lighting and composition to represent Black skin tones accurately. She is working with the community to identify individuals in the photos, aiming to prepare a selection for public exhibition by 2026.
