When we think of motorcycle clubs, we tend to think of the Hells Angels or the Outlaws, but we don't typically picture Black men being members of these groups. Pushback, one of the works on display in the Tucson, Arizona, exhibition Alanna Airitam: Black Diamonds. Alanna Airitam , a self-taught photographer, is revealing the untold stories of these Black "one-percenter" motorcyclists in her exhibition Alanna Airitam: Black Diamonds, on display now at Tucson, Arizona's Etherton Gallery .
The exhibition, running through June 22, features 15 portraits that highlight chapter members from the motorcycle club Chosen Few in Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Long Beach and the San Fernando Valley. "This club, Chosen Few, is the first multiracial or integrated motorcycle club," Airitam said. She said the club started as a group of Black men who wanted to build a brotherhood and a place to work on their bikes and ride safely across the country.
Airitam says she was inspired by the club's history with photographer Danny Lyon, who worked with Chosen Few member Clifford "Soney" Vaughs as part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights era. Lyon photographed Soney being lifted, shirtless and shoeless, by six National Guardsmen in Cambridge, Maryland, at a civil rights demonstration, according to The Vintagent . In April, Etherton Gallery took Airitam's work to the AIPAD Photography Show held annually in New York.
"(Vaughs) designed the bikes for (the movie) 'Easy Ri.
