Footage by Ethan Payne
B. Foster
I’m an writer, sociologist, and archivist. I work across ethnography, oral history, narrative, and documentary to record and interpret the culture, histories, and placemaking traditions of Black communities in the rural American South. My major works include I Don’t Like the Blues, Ghosts of Segregation (with photographer Rich Frishman), and a three-film anthology We Do a Black South Way (with cinematographer Ethan Payne). Learn more about those projects at Bezel, a digital companion to my published works. I also maintain The Black Volumes, a multi-media archive of oral histories, documentary footage, and photographs. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina and am associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia..
_001.png)
_002.png)
_003.png)
_004.png)
_005.png)
We Make: The Legendary Siggers High School in Shannon, MS
A Film by B. Brian Foster & Ethan Payne
Short Film - Oral History, Narrative
2026
To Tell Their Story Beautiful
Whether as an ethnographer, oral historian, or documentarian, I have spent the last twelve years recording the stories of Black Southerners, most of them from rural communities in the Delta and Hill Country regions of Mississippi, the state where I was born and raised.
In my archival practice, I "keep" those stories. In my research, I interpret them. And through essays, books, documentary, and public speaking, I try to tell those stories Beautiful. With a capital B and no ly.
In 1926, W.E.B. Du Bois stood before the NAACP. By then he was one of the most accomplished scientists in the world. But that day wasn't necessarily about his science. He got up to speak about art, and the urgency of making ours Beautiful. For Du Bois, for art to be Beautiful—capital B—it had to be True (capital T), which meant telling the full, complex truth of Black life. This kind of Beauty, he argued, was a tool in the long fight for Justice and Freedom for Black people.
This is the "Beauty" that I pursue, a three-fold commitment to:
-
Freedom: or, humanistic autonomy, justice, and representation for Black folks
-
Truth: or, "Long," Community-based, participatory work.
-
Practice: or, do, learn, revise, repeat
I currently work as an associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, where I teach courses on race, place, and qualitative methods. I am former co-editor of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.
