Softness Was Always Ours

Curatorial Statement

Curated by Jami Murphy, Auburn Avenue Research Library

This exhibit reclaims and reframes the idea of softness in Black womanhood. Drawing from 35 different collections at AARL, spanning the 1880s to 1980s, Softness Was Always Ours offers a quiet alternative to traditional portrayals — one that centers grace, care, vulnerability, joy, and beauty in the everyday lives of Black women and girls across generations.

The selected images span varying ages and phases of life, capturing private and public expressions of femininity, affection, style, and self-possession. Whether in posed portraits, school celebrations, church socials, or moments of rest, the women featured here invite us to witness softness not as a luxury—but as an inheritance.

“Softness isn't something you have to earn — it's our inheritence.”

Through a digital exhibit of more than 100 digitized images and a physical installation of mounted photographs, books, album covers, and multimedia, the exhibit reflects the diversity of skin tones, body types, classes, and lifestyles represented in the collection. It celebrates romance, intergenerational bonds, sisterhood and solitude while leaving space for nuance and interpretation.

In an era where Black women are portrayed as hostile, embattled, impoverished, too much, or not enough, Softness Was Always Ours asserts that we have always deserved softness—and that we’ve always claimed it, in ways both ordinary and extraordinary.