Little Giant collective Presents
I Say a Little Prayer for You
by Robert Johnson III

“I Say a Little Prayer for You” is a deeply personal photographic exploration at the intersection of family, memory, place, time, and community. Drawing inspiration from my grandfather’s WWII diary and the heartfelt letters he received from my grandmother and his family during his deployment in Europe from 1943 to 1945, I discovered a profoundly beautiful narrative of love, faith, duty and correspondence, allowing me a window into my ancestors’ lives in rural Oklahoma.

Robert Johnson III is an artist and photographer whose work explores Black cultural identity, community and the concept of home. Through his family archive, Johnson III reframes Black identity to examine how Blackness has survived in America, evolved, and reinvented itself—often in the face of historical inequities and systemic injustices. This body of work is not only a meditation on his family’s legacy, but also a broader reflection on the lived experiences of Black Americans—past, present, and future.

At the heart of this work is Gibson Station, where my great-grandparents raised my grandmother and her brothers, two of whom also served in WWII — and where my grandmother was the elementary school teacher who taught young black children to read, write, and dream big. Utilizing that same penmanship she taught in her classroom, her letters chronicled her every thought about her small-town life and her deep affection for her special soldier, serving as both a lifeline and a morale booster for my grandfather, weaving an intimate portrait of this rural village during a time the country was at war.

Gibson Station at the time was one of Oklahoma’s historically Black towns, and it represented a sanctuary for Black Americans in a segregated America. It was a place where my family could experience a sense of belonging and freedom, where the strength of an intentional community was intertwined with a shared history of struggle and aspiration. As I photograph this land today, I explore the tension between memory and erasure and how place and history continue to shape my understanding of my ancestors’ beloved community as it quietly returns to nature.

Little Giant Collective is Located at 115 River St S
Event hour 6-9 pm

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