Today, even as Teenie Harris's photography stands alongside that of Harlem's famed James VanDerZee, his work in Pittsburgh's Hill District surpasses that of all other photographers in its breadth and rich portrayal of black urban America.
The famous faces of Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, and John F. Kennedy appear among the nearly eighty thousand photographs of Charles "Teenie” Harris. But it's in the images of ordinary people and neighbourhoods that Harris shows us a city and an era teeming with energy, culture, friendship, and family.