Portrait of Barney Lockley and Laura Morris at Lincoln High School senior prom. Tallahassee, Florida, 1956. Black & white photonegative, 4 x 5 in. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/10288>, accessed 24 November 2018.
This photograph is not high enough resolution for a good image to zoom in on on a whiteboard. However, you can print it out on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. To access the higher resolution image for printing, right click on the image. Click “View Image” (or on a Mac “Open image in new tab”). To print, click “print.” In the print preview, click “Page Setup.” Choose “Portrait” for the orientation. Set all headers and footers to “blank.” Set margins to “0.” Then print.
Look to the Seven Strategies for help in generating questions for your classroom. This is a good image for introducing primary sources to students in middle school, beginning the conversation without revealing the caption. Possible questions include these:
- Strategy 2: What was the purpose of this photograph? Who do you think took it?
- Strategy 4: When was this photograph was taken? Where was this picture taken? What are the people in the picture like? How old are they? What are they wearing? What do you notice first about them? Do they like each other? What evidence supports your answer? (Possible response: They like each other because they went to the prom together and they are sitting close to each other.) Are they rich or poor? What evidence supports your answer? (Possible response: They are rich because they have on very nice clothes. Possible response: You can’t tell because everyone dresses up for the prom.)
Are the spots on his pants confetti or just spots on the picture?
Is Lincoln the name of the town or the high school or both? - Strategy 5: What new information did you get from the caption? Use that information to answer these questions: In what ways does the caption confirm the information you got from the photograph? Does any of the new information surprise you/
Extension Activity
Have students do research to answer any of these questions: Did these students go to an all black or an integrated school? What was life like for black people in Tallahassee, Florida, in the 1950s? What happened in 1954 that would affect students in the South?
A little bit of interesting information: These young people were later married, and Barney Lockley owned and operated the Artistic Barber Shop in the Frenchtown area of Tallahassee until his death at the age of 76.