Rahim Fortune’s New Photographs Document Black Texas Life

Photographer Rahim Fortune created the series "Between a Memory and Me" from summer 2024 through winter 2025, capturing community events across Texas. The work was commissioned by Documentary Arts for the book "Kinship & Community: Selections from the Texas African American Photography Archive," copublished by Aperture and Documentary Arts. Fortune’s images respond to the Texas African American Photography Archive, which contains over 150 photographs by Black photographers for Black communities. His series focuses on Juneteenth pageants, MLK parades, rodeos, and church gatherings in locations including Austin, Dallas, Houston, Bryan, Prairie View, Fort Worth, and Longview. Fortune, raised between Austin and the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, discusses his approach in an interview with Alan Govenar, emphasizing memory, family heartbreak, and the ethics of documentary photography. He cites influences such as photographer Milton Rogovin and musician Swamp Dogg. The book "Kinship & Community" is edited by Nicole R. Fleetwood and Brian Wallis, with contributions by Annette Gordon-Reed and Alan Govenar, and a foreword by Deborah Willis. Fortune’s series marks his first major color work and his first serious publication in color.