Photographer Tony Gleaton to speak Feb. 1

© 1992 Tony Gleaton
Un Hijo De Yemayha / “A Child of Yemaya,” Hopkins, Belize


© 1990 Tony Gleaton
Abrazo De La Memoria / “Embrace Of Memory,” Cuajinicuilapa, Guerrero, Mexico


© 1995 Tony Gleaton
Sin Titulo / “Untitled,” El Carmen, Peru

Award-winning photographer and Texas Tech University professor Tony Gleaton, who has traveled throughout Latin America seeking out and photographing black communities, will be featured Tuesday, Feb. 1, in the University Lecture Series.

He will show his photographs and speak on “Africa’s Legacy in Mexico, Central and South America” at 7:30 p.m. in the Satellite Student Union.

Gleaton also will visit photography, photojournalism and Africana and American Indian Studies Program classes, and meet with faculty during a four-day visit to the campus.

Gleaton, 56, served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam and attended UCLA. His interest in photography led him to New York, where he worked as a photographic assistant and various other jobs as he aspired to become a fashion photographer.

In 1980, he left New York, hitchhiking throughout the American West doing odd jobs and photographing cowboys. Finally concentrating on Native American ranch hands and blacks rodeo riders, he stopped in Texas, where he was befriended by a group of black rodeo performers. His time in Texas, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Kansas, and Colorado eventually formed the core of his “COWBOYS: Reconstructing an American Myth,” a series of photos and portraits of African-, Native-, Euro-, Mexican- and Mexican-American cowboys. In the process he was introduced to Mexican rodeo and began traveling to and from Mexico with a group of charros from Los Angeles.

From 1982-88 he traveled throughout Mexico and later established a household with the Tarahumara Indians of northern Mexico, where he came and went for almost two years before traveling to Guerrero and Oaxaca. There he began his most well-known project, “ AFRICA'S

LEGACY IN MEXICO,” photographs of the present-day descendants of the Black African slaves brought to New Spain in the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s. AFRICA'S LEGACY was eventually exhibited by the Smithsonian Institutions Traveling Exhibition Service in the United States and toured in Mexico and Cuba by the Mexican Naccional Council.

He worked in 1992-96 to expand the project to include Central and South America, traveling over 20,000 miles on the ground to more than 16 countries to complete “TENGO CASI 500 AÑOS: AFRICA'S LEGACY IN MEXICO, CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA.”

In 1997, after being named a Fellow of the City of Los Angeles, he returned to northern Mexico until returning to the U.S. to resume teaching in the fall of 1999 in the School of Art at the University of Michigan/Ann Arbor. In February of 2000, he was awarded a commission to travel to the South Pacific to produce an exhibit of photographs celebrating the American Samoa Centennial Celebration.

He currently teaches at Texas Tech University in Lubbock Texas, where he has started a multi-year project on the African Diaspora in the Trans-Mississippi West in collaboration with the Southwest Collection of Texas Tech University and the Denver and Oakland public libraries.

Advance tickets for the University Lecture Series are available starting Jan. 17 at the University Student Union Information Center (8-2078).   Advance prices are $10 general; $6 faculty/staff/alumni association, seniors and high school students; and $2 Fresno State and University High School students .

Tickets will be available at the door on a first-come, first-served basis from 6:30 to

7:30 p.m. Prices at the door are $12 general; $8 faculty/staff/alumni association, seniors and high school students; and $2 Fresno State and UHS students.

The University Lecture Series is sponsored by the Office of the Provost with cooperation from the University Student Union, Associated Students, Inc., KJWL, KVPR, James and Coke Hallowell and Piccadilly Inn Hotels.