Gillian Laub, *A Prom king and queen, dancing at the black prom, Vidalia, Georgia,* 2009, inkjet print, 40 × 50 inches. © Gillian Laub, courtesy of Benrubi Gallery.

Written by Megan May Walsh

Edited by Jana Massoud

American photographer Gillian Laub dives into the stories of Mount Vernon, Georgia’s youth in her traveling exhibition with the International Center of Photography titled Southern Rites. It all began in 2002 when Laub was sent to Mount Vernon on a magazine assignment to document the lives of teenagers in the American South. A decade later, a visual story, vibrant and teeming with social-political impact, emerged.

Gillian Laub, *Amber and Reggie, Mount Vernon, Georgia*, 2011, inkjet print, 40 × 50 inches. © Gillian Laub, courtesy of Benrubi Gallery.

Arriving at Montgomery County in Georgia, Laub encountered kind residents, caring of their neighbors and proud of their history, yet something haunted the small pastoral southern American town. Laub first witnessed this unsettling specter within the joyful celebrations of young adulthood - high school homecomings and proms. Despite the excitement bubbling from picking out royal-colored dresses and matching ties, and the comradery celebrated amongst high schoolers growing up with each other, racial tensions echoing from the south’s dark past permeated these common rites of passages.

Gillian Laub, *Shelby on her grandmother’s car, Mount Vernon, Georgia*, 2008, inkjet print, 32 × 40 inches. © Gillian Laub, courtesy of Benrubi Gallery.

Through her talent of capturing an individual’s story within a single image, Gillian Laub brings into existence a complex and collective visual story of Montgomery County’s history from the standpoint of the region’s youth. Despite the appearance of social progress since slavery, Gillian reveals that the scars from America’s racist past still mark the consciousness of the “land of the free.” Examining the rites of passage of young adulthood in the American South, Laub makes visible the continuous racial segregation of the American South. With these traditions holding significant sway over young people forming their identity and perspective on the world, racially segregated proms and homecomings construct an identity and worldview absent of encountering difference. When young people step into the next phase of their lives in a racially segregated environment, the hope of building racially just futures diminishes tragically. Thus, Gillian Laub poses the question: do new generations have the potential to build better futures despite the grip of a harrowing past?

Gillian Laub, *Lacy, the black prom queen, Mount Vernon, Georgia*, 2008, inkjet print, 30 × 37 inches. © Gillian Laub, courtesy of Benrubi Gallery.

In 2011, Gillian Laub’s project took on an even heavier emphasis when Montgomery County’s very own Justin Patterson, a twenty-two-year-old unarmed Black man, was shot and killed by a twenty-six-year-old white man. Justin Patterson, whose face was photographed by Laub during his segregated high school homecoming, was now a face under a tragic headline. What began as an exploration of segregated high school rituals transformed into a foreboding of what will come if America refuses to radically confront its racist history—more violence and tragedy.

Gillian Laub, *Julie and Bubba, Mount Vernon, Georgia*, 2002, inkjet print, 32 × 40 inches. © Gillian Laub, courtesy of Benrubi Gallery.

Recognizing the dual potentialities of young people’s ability to either bring forth social progress or reinforce the status quo, Laub documents these critical turning points for young people. She shows us both what we wish to see and what we don’t wish to see - but must. She shows us images from Black proms and white proms, a white woman proudly wearing the confederate flag, and an interracial couple. Each photograph radically reveals the hauntings that America’s harrowing past inflicts on the present and the questionable futures such a truth frames. Perhaps visually confronting these painful realities is an instigator - a start - towards radical social progress.

Gillian Laub’s traveling exhibition Southern Rites is organized by the International Center of Photography and ICP curator Maya Benton. For more information on the exhibit, please visit ICP’s website here.