Photograph of Raphu Williams in Tuskegee Institute band uniform: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A black and white photograph of a young man, Raphu Williams, in uniform for the Tuskegee Institute band. Shown from the waist up, Williams is seated in quarter-turn pose from the camera but turns his slight to his left to gaze directly at the viewer. He wears a military-style jacket, belted at the waist, with an X shaped pin and a Roman numeral II pin on the collar, and epaulets on the shoulder. He holds a trumpet in his left hand standing upright on his lap. The photograph is set in a cardboard matting with an arch window that has a charcoal grey edge with black pinstripes running along the outer rim. The rest of the matting is brown. Along the matting's bottom margin is pre-printed black text that reads “Photographic Division / P.H. Polk. Instructor / Tuskegee Institute / Alabama.” The bottom portion of the matting has broken away from the upper part. The back of the matting is blank.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1933-1937
• Photograph by: P. H. Polk, American, 1898 - 1984
• Subject of: Tuskegee Institute, American, founded 1881
• Subject of: Raphu Salathiel Williams, Bahamian American, 1913 - 1987
• Type: gelatin silver prints
• Type: portraits
• Medium: silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper
• Dimensions: H x W (image): 4 1/4 × 2 3/8 in. (10.8 × 6 cm)
• Dimensions: H x W (sheet): 4 3/4 × 2 15/16 in. (12 × 7.4 cm)
• Place captured: Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Band (Music)
• Topic: Education
• Topic: HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities)
• Topic: Instrumentalists (Musicians)
• Topic: Music
• Topic: Musicians
• Object number: 2022.57.3
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Rozalia Cecelia Williams
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: Unknown – Restrictions Possible Rights assessment and proper usage is the responsibility of the user.