PROFILE

Photo By Cornell Watson

Titus Brooks Heagins – an internationally renowned photographer whose work dots galleries from the Power Plant to Paris to the Smithsonian – used to play the trumpet really, really well in high school. In fact, he was first chair.

Heagins grew up in the segregated south. Born in Chicago, but raised in Houston, he thrived at his segregated middle and high schools. He alternated serving as president and vice president for an exhaustive roster of academic clubs, maintained a near-perfect average, and was an absolute darling to have in class.

And, boy, could he play that trumpet.

Caught in the midst of the 1967-68 federal school-integration initiatives sweeping the south, Heagins was funneled into a newly integrated neighboring high school.  “It was thought that I would have a bright and meaningful future,” Heagins says, matter-of-factly, his eyes now shaded behind blue-rimmed Wayfayers and a cheery yellow Michigan baseball cap. His soft, low voice carries with it an air of amusement — seemingly poking fun at his younger optimism.

But now that 17-year-old Heagins sat among white children and before white teachers, it was as if no one thought that at all. Though he had entered with an A average, he was barred from joining the honors society. Though he had previously only taken the most challenging course load, he was relegated to remedial courses.  

And though Heagins was the best trumpet player in his majority-black alma mater, his song was all but silenced when he was made to be eighth chair trumpet.

Growing weary of the race-motivated erasure he faced each day within and beyond his integrated high school, Heagins decided he would study architecture. “I felt that designing buildings was one lasting way of proving that I was here,” he says, scanning our surroundings. “Over 100 years a building can last.” We were sitting on the outdoor plaza of the American Tobacco District — the iconic, brick red heart of Downtown Durham where lush residential apartments, quirky restaurants, and art galleries restored life to 19th-century tobacco-factory buildings. “This landscape was built by African Americans. Yet, as you travel the U.S., it is not evident that African Americans made serious contributions to this country.”

“In creating buildings that last a longtime,” he concludes, “someone has to recognize you.”

In search of the inalienable visibility he deserved, he pursued an architectural degree from the University of Houston after turning down financially-unfeasible offers from Stanford and MIT. His final project characterized the grim reality of his four years of architecture school. With a few days left, Heagins had to present a carefully crafted design solution to better incorporate greenery into apartment complexes.  Standing in front of a panel of five white professors, Heagins listened while four of them vehemently insisted that his solution was crazy, absolutely worthless. He sensed a rising malice that ran deeper than architectural critique. It was the very same malice that stalled his class enrollment during his first semester because the admissions team could not believe how a 20-year-old Black boy could produce the drawings that he did. “I stood up and said, ‘This isn’t about architecture, this is about me being black,’” he recounts. “I got up, and I walked right out."

Heagins felt cheated. Cheated of his education. Cheated of his potential. “I realized what happened to me was all about race, and I wanted to do what I could." Well, what could he do? He could change the very laws that sanctioned his discrimination in the first place, he thought. And so, it was decided, Heagins would go to law school.



Growing up, Heagins and his siblings would sit in the back seat of his mother's car and drive to restaurant after restaurant after restaurant. Moments after the car was parked, he'd follow his hungry siblings and mother inside. Upon spotting a "Colored" or "White" sign, however, she would turn around and say, "Let's go, get back in the car!" and off to the next restaurant they went. They'd drive all day hungry. It mattered little how loud their stomach growls were. Heagins' mother refused to subject herself or her family to that overt discrimination, and for that reason, she was Heagins' role model. Like mother, like son, Heagins was a fighter. 

Back in high school, Heagins decided, first-chair trumpet was something to fight for. Luckily for him, there existed the long-respected practice of challenging the higher-ranking instrumentalist. Though the senior instrumentalist had the advantage of choosing the song, location, and general parameters for the musical duel, they also retained the right to decline any challenge. There were seven people ranked above Heagins, and he was ready to play the game. "I was better… I knew I was better, so I wanted to challenge him head to head," Heagins recalls, stirring with the same conviction that moved his younger self to action 50 years prior.


Heagins moved to Durham, North Carolina and earned his bachelor’s degree in political science at Duke. With a degree under his belt, Heagins, now in his late 30's, marched determinedly into law school. One day, in the midst of his first semester of school, he walked over to the placement office to inquire about securing a clerkship for the summer.

As he approached the desk and began to explain his mission, the advisor cut him off, stating sharply that there were no jobs for him. Assuming that she mustn't have known he was a student here, he pulled out his student ID, eager to clear up the confusion.

"I know who you are," she asserted coolly. "There are no jobs here."

Heagins nodded, turned around, and made a beeline to the Dean's office. On his way there, he bumped into the school's President of Services and fervently recounted what had happened.

Matching the clinical tone of the placement office employee, she responded, "We don't do that."

"What do you mean you don't do that?" Heagins exclaimed, "None of us are here on scholarship. So, if I don't get total usage of this office that means that part of my tuition is supplementing someone's white education."

Motioning to the Dean's office, she responded, "If you go in there and you bring this up, you won't be here next year."

Shortly after, Heagins was kicked out on baseless claims of academic failure.

Just two years later, Congress introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which overturned the 1989 Supreme Court decision inWards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio. Congress found that that 1989 ruling weakened federal civil right protections, sanctioning the very racial discrimination that found Heagins "unfit" to return to school. Thus, Congress codified and expanded the scope of discrimination within the work and academic environment. Crucially, the Act enacted a 180-day expiration period beyond which, the employee or student alleging a violation could not make a formal complaint.

For the innumerable acts of discrimination that employees or students faced preceding the 180 days prior to that ruling, there would be no path of action. For all those people, and for him, Heagins sighed, "There will be no redress."

The legally sanctioned discrimination Heagins had set out to change was the very force that barred him from ever doing so. And there would be no redress.  


Motivated by his recent victorious musical duel, Heagins was as motivated as ever to climb the ranks to first chair. Only two white boys – Sonny and Jones – stood between him and the brass glory he knew he deserved. Trumpet in hand, he confidently challenged them. And again. And again. They never showed up.

But why would they? They benefited from their privilege, their band's racist structure. Sonny and Jones had all the incentive to continue passively reaping the benefits of whiteness: trumpet solos, school-wide recognition, the smiles of their proud parents in the crowd. Being fair? Reasonable? Well, that meant that their musical skill, their position in band gets challenged. Why bother?

It's not that Heagins did not understand this, it's that he refused to accept it. Just as his mother had driven him from restaurant to restaurant to restaurant. He would continue to challenge and challenge and challenge Sonny and Jones.

From Heagins’series, East Durham Stories

"So, I grew up in a small area, a small neighborhood," he begins, his fingers tracing a square in the bronze lattice of the outdoor plaza table. "Here,” he says as his fingers run alongside two edges of the square, “lived poor African Americans surrounded on one side by a free way.”   "And on this side, poor whites," he continues, his fingers now tracing the third side of the square. "And over here, poor Latinos." His finger moves to cover the final street of his neighborhood block.

"And I do work, I do work in the communities that I work in because the people that I photograph largely remind me of the people who lived in my community growing up," he explains motioning to the bronze lattice he traced. "The people in my neighborhood were women who did day house work for the poor-middle class, middle-class families, and the men, you know, had jobs that no one wanted, and they were treated that way.

"But in our neighborhood," his voice rising with emotion, "they were Mr. and Mrs."

After he was ejected from law school, Heagins came to photography, recognizing it as the way he could make his statement. Photography had always been a hobby for him, but only in his early 40s did he realize how powerful it could be. At 51, he earned his MFA from the University of Michigan.

His work centers around Others – those who are othered by their identity. Be it because of race, class, sexual orientation, religion or gender.  Those whose narratives, if ever included in visual art are flattened into a dimensionless, cis-white narrative, stripped of their "Mr. and Mrs." As he explains, "I'm always concerned of the representation of race, the representation of African Americans, and of people who are rejected as others. I try to find a way to tell the truth about their stories, about who they are." Heagins continues, “There is this idea of who we are, which means we are typically portrayed as some sort of — that we are not educated, skilled, motivated — you know, all of it. And I sense that very few photographers take the time to explain that, even visually."

What Adam Narcross, the painter whose studio hosted my first interaction with Heagins, admires most in his good friend is his commitment to his subjects: "Heagins wouldn't just be there for, you know, a few minutes or an hour or two and then pack up and leave,” he remarks. “He is going to eat the same food as the people. He's going to go stay in the same residence as where the people are staying. He's going to speak to different people in that community. He is going to really place himself in the arena of actual common living."

And only then, as Heagins’ dear friend Godfrey Herndon explains, is he able to capture "the humanity, the living breathing person you can perceive in his photographs."

Through various, multiple yearlong photo series, Heagins tells, with reverence and truth, the story of those who are marginalized. In his series INKED, he celebrates tattoos and tattoo parlor culture. In his series, Durham Stories, he explores the lives of Black and Latinx residents who were pushed out of the city center as Durham gentrifies. He's lived with the transgender community in Cuba, unraveling the ways in which gender identity and gender expression interacts with Cuban machismo. He's befriended Haitians as he unveiled the beauty and intricacies of the island's culture.

"Issues of race have affected the entirety of my life — not because I’ve really done anything but because I’ve chosen to say something about my position… Because I conveyed my rights," he explains. Through the lens of his camera, he provides an unwavering platform for his subjects to speak about both their own marginalization and their nuanced identity that has been erased because of it.

Today, at age 69, his work is internationally recognized and celebrated. I asked him whether he feels happier now.

"You know today, I woke up. I got a pretty nice house. I got a gold Amex, I can buy whatever I want. I got a nice sports car, an Audi. I mean, what is happiness? I am somewhat healthy. I’ve got a good partner who’s lovely and intelligent, who graduated from Duke, a great school. I graduated. Got my MFA. My work’s in the Smithsonian. I mean," he pauses looking now at me, "Yeah."

He takes a slow breath.

"But I am not an architect."

He takes another.

"And I’m not a lawyer."

And there will be no redress

Nervous energy palpitated around Third Chair Trumpet Heagins and his high school band as they anxiously prepared for the next day's all-state competition. The nervous energy mixed poorly with First Chair Trumpet Jones's lack of preparation, as made evident, and intolerable, by his erroneous practice solos. Growing fed up with Jones's blunders, the band coach turned to Heagins and asked, "Can you take his solos?"

Which of course, Heagins, being as thorough and passionate about band as he was, could.

The next day, preforming as first chair, Heagins’ team won second place. More memorably, however, the judges made a special comment about Heagins’ solos. He was the only student they commented on individually in the whole state-wide competition.

"So, you know, it was good, " he smiled weakly to me, "but it didn’t do anything to relieve me of the injustice I suffered there all year."

As the last soaring notes left Heagins’ trumpet and expanded to fill the competition room, even his standpoint of honorary first chair could not shake what he knew to be true: there could never, would never be any redress.