You Can Burn the Building but not the Spirit

Date1996, printed 2025

MediumArchival digital print on paper

DimensionsSheet: 22 × 32 inches (55.9 × 81.3 cm)
Matted: 32 × 40 inches (81.3 × 101.6 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase partially funded by Telfair’s Friends of African American Arts

Object number2025.17

On View

On view

Copyright© Jason Miccolo Johnson. The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextJason Miccolo Johnson is a nationally recognized photographer, currently living and working in Savannah. This photograph shows a pastor holding the Bible and standing on the steps of a 100-year-old church in Charlotte, NC, that had been burned down after a rash of Black church burnings in the 1990s. Johnson drove to document the moment and toured the grounds alongside Myrlie Evers-Williams (b. 1933), the chairperson of the NAACP and wife of civil rights activist Medgar Evers (1925–1963). Afterwards, the pastor posed for this photograph “represent[ing] loss and resilience.”

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