The photographs of Charles “Teenie” Harris are among Pittsburgh’s cultural treasures, and one of the greatest visual repositories of Black history in the U.S.
Some 80,000 of his images — most shot for the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper over several decades in the mid-20th century — are housed in the permanent collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Friday, the late photographer was honored with a state historical marker outside the house in Homewood where he lived for decades, with his darkroom in the basement.
“He is without question one of the greatest historians our city has ever seen,” said Matthew Falcone, president of Preservation Pittsburgh, the group that led the drive for the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission marker.
The blue plaque with yellow lettering is mounted on a tall metal post. In a light rain, dozens of onlookers attended the short ceremony outside the house on Mulford Street, including children of Harris’ who had grown up in the now-vacant two-story structure.
“The reason why I love Pittsburgh is because my dad loved this city,” said Lionel Harris, one of Teenie and Elsa Harris’ five children and an officer of the newly formed Charles “Teenie” Harris Foundation. “And he loved this city so much he gave his life up for his city.”
Starting in the 1930s, Harris was famed for being on the scene everywhere from the streets, ballfields and nightclubs of the Hill District to visits by celebrities like President John F. Kennedy, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, jazz greats Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, and athletes from boxing champ Joe Louis to baseball Hall of Famers Josh Gibson and Jackie Robinson.
“If it weren’t for Teenie, [telling] a lot of our stories as African Americans would not have been possible,” said Charlene Foggie-Barnett, community archivist for the Carnegie’s Harris collection. His images, she said at the unveiling, are “the proof of the African-American existence in this country, especially in Teenie’s era.”
The Carnegie promises that a reinstallation of its Harris gallery this November will provide unprecedented access to his work.
Harris was born in 1908 and died in 1998. He lived in the Mulford Street house starting in the late 1930s.
Lionel Harris said he was named after jazz great Lionel Hampton, one of the musicians and athletes who visited his father in those years. Others included jazz guitarist George Benson and Pirates Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente.
The fate of the building is uncertain. The county’s website lists the property’s owner as Ira Vann Harris, a late son of Teenie Harris. The county has advertised that the building will go up for sheriff’s sale Oct. 7.
However, Falcone said Friday that the new marker is the first step in Preservation Pittsburgh’s plan to seek historic landmark status for the building.
Preservation Pittsburgh spokesperson Melissa McSwigan said the group learned about the sheriff's sale only recently. She wrote in an email Friday that the group is in talks to save the house and "there are various people and groups who could potentially work together, building on the momentum generated today, to see a renewed future for the house."
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, bearing a proclamation declaring Sept. 27, 2024 Teenie Harris Day, also vowed to save the house and to pursue renaming Mulford “Teenie Harris Street.”
Also at the unveiling, acclaimed Pittsburgh sculptor Thad Mosley recalled working with Harris in the 1950s at the Courier, when Mosley was a fledgling sportswriter and Harris mentored him. And Anthony Williams, a musician and CEO of the “Teenie” Harris Foundation, recalled meeting Harris as a child growing up a block away.
Other speakers included Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, state Sen. Jay Costa, state Rep. Abigail Salisbury, and Heinz History Center president and CEO Andrew Masich, who is also a member of the state historical and museum commission.
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Arts & Culture Reporter
