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Black culture is often imitated and used by other people to make a profit. While we can’t stop certain things from being “imitated,” we can stop the free use of our history.

Roland Martin talks to Angela Ford of The Obsidian Collection Archives about monetizing Black culture.

When it comes to photos, others have made millions off of us. Legendary Black newspapers and even families of Black photographers, often sell entire libraries of photos for thousands of dollars. But they’re actually worth millions.

When Ford went into the Chicago Defender she was told, “that the room had approximately 10,000 photos,” but after they got into the photo room, there were 250,000 photos.

Ford says, “if you want to tell our Black stories,” it’ll cost you at least $499 per photo.

Preserving these photos is so important because, “you can’t see 250,000 images of yourself and be the same.” Ford says that photos that might not necessarily be valuable to the public, could be valuable to the family and those should also be preserved.

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Roland Martin Black People Need To ‘Monetize Our Culture’  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com