Andrew Feiler’s “Without Regard to Sex, Race, or Color” is a photographic meditation on an embattled historic college and the state of the American Dream. This photographic exhibition will be on display at the AUC Woodruff Library from October 23 – November 29, 2015.

A large bell hangs in the clock tower overlooking the now quiet campus of Morris Brown College. Its inscription reads, in part, “Dedicated to the Education of Youth, Without Regard to Sex, Race or Color.” Founded by African Americans in 1881, Morris Brown lost its accreditation to financial pressures and scandal in 2002. Today its campus is largely abandoned.

Feiler was granted unique access to Morris Brown’s hauntingly silent campus. His documentary artistic photography portrays a proud past, a challenging present and an uncertain future, not only for this one institution but for all of America’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). More broadly, this work offers a new way into the debate raging in our society about the essential role education has played as the foundation of the American Dream. That tradition and legacy are now at risk. Too many Americans cannot afford to go to college. Too many Americans are being crushed by college debt. Too many of these American dreams cannot be fully realized.

A book of this work has just been published by the University of Georgia Press in association with the Georgia Humanities Council. This publication includes ten historical images, sixty contemporary images and essays by Robert E. James, Pellom McDaniels III, Amalia K. Amaki, and Loretta Parham (of the AUC Woodruff Library).

About the photographer:

Andrew Feiler is a fifth-generation Georgian. Having grown up Jewish in Savannah, he and his art have been shaped by the rich complexities of the American South and of being a minority in the South: history and culture, geography and race, tradition and conflict, injustice and progress. Andrew’s photographs have won numerous awards. His work has been featured in museums, galleries, and magazines and is in a number of private collections. He earned his master’s in American history from Oxford University and his master’s in business administration from Stanford University. More of his photography can be seen at andrewfeiler.com.