Jules T. Allen

Jules Allen (born September 13, 1947) is an American photographer, author, and educator.

He is known for his photographs of African-American culture.

He is an emeritus professor of Queensborough Community College, City University of New York, where he has taught for two decades in the art and photography department.

Jules T. Allen was born in San Francisco, California.

He studied at San Francisco State University (BFA, MS degree), under photographer Jack Welpott.

He moved to New York City in 1978.

He continued his studies at Hunter College (MFA degree).

He shares the belief of photographer Diane Arbus, who states, “the more specific a thing is, the more general.” The artist, Danny Dawson has said, "Allen has a “keen eye for the obvious” in his lifelong work evocative of the contemporary black experience. His images place subjects drawn from the richness of black life within universal paradigms. They have inspired collaborations with journalists, visual artists, musicians, playwrights, poets, and filmmakers.

Allen also used his photographs to promote segregation and the idea that blacks and whites were truly equal.

Allen comments on his collection depicting boxers in Gleason Gym by saying, “whatever racism existed, it did not seem to have much effect on the fighters in the room.

It was a question of character.

It was a place where people seemed to be more equal”.

Allen used the boxing ring and the sport itself to display the equality between blacks and whites as they were literally on even ground and the only difference between the two was the character of each fighter.

It wasn’t a question of who was what race and who had more privilege, it was about the heart and drive of each of the fighters in the ring.Allen's books include Hats and HatNots, Black Bodies and 2011 publication on boxing life in New York City's Gleason's Gym, Double Up: Photographs by Jules Allen, and the 2013 publication of "In Your Own Sweet Way," a personal and intimate collection of photographic conversations across the continent of Africa.

Exhibited in the U.S. and abroad, as shown in the Permanent Museum Collections & Exhibition listing below, he is the recipient of grants and awards.

His photographs are housed in museum collections worldwide.

His commercial and corporate work has been seen on covers of national publications such as Business Week, Forbes and Black Enterprise magazines as well as within the Annual Reports of corporate boards and clients within the music industry.

Allen's most prominent project, The Black Marching Band, depicts the Morgan State University marching band.

In this project, Allen uses the marching band to challenge the preconceived ideas of marching bands at the time.

Allen also believed the Morgan State band specifically was providing a much more original, almost tribal African American sound.

He says, “What I call now the pulse and beat of what they were doing.

It all seemed so particular to an African-American sensibility". Allen believed that the marching band gave a very expressive and musical way to express unity and cooperation within the African American community. Allen published the book Marching Bands (2016, City University of New York) on the subject.