Students paid homage to James Van Der Zee, whose work presented Harlem as a deep residential and creative home to legions of black individuals, families, traditions, businesses and institutions of excellence.

Editor’s note: “Reimagining James Van Der Zee,” an exhibit based on the “Harlem Reimagined”  project described below, opens with a reception 4-6 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library.

By David E. Early, Hearst Visiting Journalism Professor in Residence

One hundred years ago, James Van Der Zee, the famed cultural photographer, launched his Harlem-based business that focused on portraits, lifestyle, art, music, intellectual pursuits and numerous efforts at achieving racial equality for black folks.

Now, a century later, a team of photojournalism students from San Jose State University, led by Associate Professor Duane Michael Cheers, returned to New York on a project entitled, “Harlem Reimagined.”  Their task was to take an intense, visual inspection of the community today, as it deals with a wave of gentrification that threatens to diminish or remove Harlem as the nation’s black, cultural mecca.

In a four-day, on-the-ground, academic attack, the SJSU photo-rangers took a team of 10 to New York. That group became part of a roving army of 45 educators, reporters, guides, high school students, activists and Harlem locals — many of whom, with hungry cameras in tow — captured thousands of defining images.

Back when Van Der Zee was working, the prolific African-American shooter produced an enormous collection that beautifully captured all factions of Harlem life before, during and after the Harlem Renaissance. The photographer’s work, famously featured in a 1969 show at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, presented Harlem as a deep residential and creative home to legions of black individuals, families, traditions, businesses and institutions of excellence.

A portrait reflects Harlem today.

Today?

Harlem remains a busy and soulful, African-American village, but one that is absorbing an unsettling wave of gentrification. Left unchecked, the movement threatens to wipe out long-term residents, along with the schools, churches, businesses, neighborhoods, entertainment venues and social justice organizations that have defined African-American achievement for decades.

Surging real estate values have already shoved aside thousands of poor and middle-income blacks by building and refurbishing numerous living spaces into ultra-expensive domiciles. The great fear in Harlem is that gentrification might deliver on an oft-heard, cold declaration: “Those who can pay, can stay.”

The SJSU photo project hopes to capture the struggle against financial and racial forces that threaten to transform Harlem into something unrecognizable to the very people who have nourished it for decades.

The energetic shooters searched the streets, morning-til-night, looking for the shimmer and the shame, the pride and the poverty, the love and the loathing that happens when widespread change shoves a beloved community into an unknown realm.

Students patrolled and shot life on streets named after black luminaries.

Students photographed everything from the famed Apollo Theater to the Studio Museum of Harlem. From parks bearing statues of Harriet Tubman and Duke Ellington, to the colorful frenzy of the Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Market, stuffed with genuine, African goods.

They patrolled and shot life on streets named after black luminaries — Frederick Douglass, Adam Clayton Powell and Martin Luther King Jr. — and challenged people, black and white, to discuss the unlikely conundrum: the possible dismantling of the most precious, black community in America.

Into the lenses of their roving cameras, shooters also caught The Shrine urban beats nightclub, The Graffiti Wall of Fame, Sylvia’s upscale soul restaurant and prominent academies named after Chief Justice Thurgood Marshall, author James Baldwin and educator Mary McLeod Bethune.

Up on Harlem’s Sugarhill, they shot a restaurant where comedian Redd Foxx and Malcolm X worked the kitchen together and a single apartment building where Supreme Court Justice Marshall, W.E.B. DuBois and Walter White once lived. Imagine, civil rights giants of the law, education and racial justice in a single structure along with another tenant Maestro Ellington, The Duke.

Students also explored unique and highly personal establishments: Sister’s Uptown Bookstore and Cultural Center, owned and operated by the inspirational Janifer Wilson, a retired physician at Bronx Lebanon Hospital who worked in the department of surgery. Today, she despairs that hers is the only black-owned bookstore in Manhattan.

Another store, Hats By Bunn, turned out to be a slim, miraculous emporium where one man crafts supple, sharp and colorful head wear by hand on an ancient machine. His store is also an easy-going, drop-in center for friends, and the curious and loving customers the world over.

“I make people look good and feel good,” says Bunn, whose creativity feeds off the music filling his shop six days a week. “My designs come from the rhythms of the moment.”

The team of visual cultural excavators even looked at the fresh crop of unlikely new businesses, including Whole Foods.

The team of visual cultural excavators even looked at the fresh crop of unlikely new businesses: Whole Foods to Starbucks, CVS to Buffalo Wild Wings. They even absorbed the images out of a burger-and-fries eatery called Harlem Shake, whose owners confessed how they tried to honor the community by reproducing a funky, “Harlem vibe,” from back in the day.

In the end, the visual exploration of Harlem at this critical, life-altering moment in the community’s history, will become a riveting, educational document that will speak intelligently and from the heart in the service of cultural history, for decades to come.

By Professor Michael Cheers, Associate Professor of Journalism

Thirty-four years after the death of renown photographer James Van Der Zee, the quintessential chronicler of the Harlem Renaissance and the greater Black community from 1906 to 1983, San Jose State University photojournalism students and New York alternative high school photo students met in Harlem last October to take a fresh look at one of America’s most culturally diverse, historically rich, vibrant and iconic, yet ever changing communities.

Students from the Satellite Academy High School and the James Baldwin School, both in Manhattan, participated in this extraordinary project developed by the SJSU School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

“A-Train Reimagined” is among the images captured by students.

Exhibit Opens Feb. 8

Twelve students and their teachers from Satellite Academy are traveling to San Jose for the exhibition opening and reception 4-6 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. One photo student from Boynton High School in San Jose also participated, as did one local community college photo student.

More than 100 of the students’ images on 44 montages and individual portraits will be on display at the library’s second floor exhibition area until March 31. The montages show a kaleidoscope of diverse faces interspersed with a medley of iconic Harlem landmarks and competing cultures.

The project bridged Photo Voice methodology and hip-hop pedagogy. Using Apple-sponsored iPhones and DSLR cameras, the neophyte students canvassed the main boulevards, side streets, back streets, and alleys, capturing the sights and sounds, and the ebb and flow of Harlem through the lens of their innocence and freshness, documenting what they saw and felt.

Student and faculty participants gather for a group photo in Harlem.

SJSU Journalism Students and Faculty

The four SJSU journalism undergraduate beginning photo students selected were Payje Redmond, Franchesca Natividad, Lovetta Jackson and Savannah Harding.

Michael Cheers, associate professor at San Jose State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, was the lead researcher and facilitator. Juan Serna, SJSU Journalism TV studio manager/engineer served as a bi-lingual field instructor and chief post-production editor.

The project kicked-off Oct. 27, with a two-hour guided, orientation-walking tour of Harlem. The four-day experience ended on Oct. 29.

Janifer Wilson, owner of Sister’s Uptown Bookstore and Cultural Center.

There were Marcus Garveyites and Van Der Zee Harlemites not willing to trade in, sell off or sell out the richness of their heritage. The students saw black vendors smiling at streams of white tourists while selling their wares to anyone because the only color that counts to them is green. They also heard from Janifer Wilson, owner of Sister’s Uptown Bookstore and Cultural Center, in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem, thought to be the only black-owned bookstore in Manhattan.

“Change has to happen in order for us to evolve, but the displacement of folk who are grassroots… the people who started these communities, is very disheartening,” Wilson said.

A site partnership was arranged with the prestigious Studio Museum in Harlem, where the students met daily to discuss their work. The museum also is the custodian of an extensive archive of the work of James Van Der Zee.

The exhibition moves to New York in April.

SJSU students Stephanie Gersh and Lloyd Alaban help NBC Bay Area Digital Editor Kris Noceda finalize election night stories (Photo: Jennifer Gonzalez, ’17 Journalism and English).

As the votes were being counted and reported on election night 2016, graduate students from the SJSU School of Journalism and Mass Communications played a part in one local television station’s extensive coverage.

Thirteen students in Mass Communications 210: Media & Social Issues volunteered to help NBC Bay Area news staff members gather and report the latest developments as they happened.

“Our grad students come from many academic backgrounds,” Professor Bob Rucker said. “This will give them an up close, eye-opening and unique media learning experience on one of the busiest and most exciting nights in the TV news business.”

NBC Bay Area Vice President of News Stephanie Adrouny and Professor Rucker planned the joint project weeks ahead of time. On Nov. 1, newsroom Executive Producer Dan Pyryt visited the class and explained to students how they would be helping individual newsroom producers and reporters identify and share late-breaking election developments, address voter concerns called into the station, and support NBC social media reporting efforts that night.

While on campus, Pyryt also met with several staff members of the Spartan Daily student newspaper, and congratulated them on their efforts. He told the student staff members and Professor Rucker’s class that the NBC Bay Area news team reads the campus newspaper every day, and many times they develop SJSU stories after reading the student reporting.

The long-time motto of the SJSU journalism program is “Learn by Doing.” Rucker, a former CNN correspondent and NBC local news election night anchor and reporter in Philadelphia, covered the 1980 Ronald Reagan-Jimmy Carter vote count.

“I will never forget how thrilling it was to be a part of that history making evening,” Rucker said.