senegalese photographer omar victor diop reimagines historical moments of black protest in new photo series

Senegalese fine arts and fashion photographer Omar Victor Diop describes his latest series, “Liberty,” as “a reinvented narrative of the history of the black people.” The powerful portraits tastefully showcase international moments of Black resistance spanning generations, including Bloody Sunday and the death of Trayvon Martin. “Liberty” will be exhibited at the Festival of La Gacilly, in Brittany (Morbihan), from June 3rd through September 30th. Check out some of the most stunning images below!:

On December 1st 1944, at a military camp in Dakar, Senegal, the colonial authority ordered the violent repression of a protest by a group of former prisoners of war. The protestors were demonstrating for payments promised by France that they had not received. Seventy were killed without warning. (Omar Victor Diop – Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A)

In the early eighteenth century, Ghanaian-born Queen Nanny fled the Jamaican plantations with her brother Quao and founded a community of chestnuts in the Blue Mountains in Portland. The place has been christened Nanny Town. Nanny is credited with releasing hundreds of slaves over several decades. (Omar Victor Diop – Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A)

Between November 1929 and January 1930, 25,000 Ibo women of Nigeria rebelled against taxes by their British colonizers. The violent repression of this “women’s war” resulted dozens of their deaths. (Omar Victor Diop – Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A)

In 1944, Aline Sitoé Diatta led a resistance of Casamance farmers in southern Senegal against the war effort and other colonial disruptions imposed by France. Arrested for insurgency and deported to Timbuktu, Mali, Diatta died at just 24 years old. (Omar Victor Diop – Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A)

In 1965, three marches between Selma and Montgomery (Alabama) were organized to defend voting rights. On March 7th, 600 demonstrators were attacked by police in what would later be known as “Bloody Sunday.” The violence brought out Martin Luther King to the next two marches later in the month. (Omar Victor Diop – Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A)

On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Black boy, was murdered in Sanford, Florida. George Zimmerman, a resident of a neighborhood that had recently been hit by a series of burglaries, killed him, but was later acquitted. (Omar Victor Diop – Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A)

Check out more of Diop’s work here: https://www.omarviktor.com/about