We have witnessed many engaging films highlighting visual artists: Vivian Maier. It could be the film medium naturally comes alive when displaying exceptionally powerful visual compositions. Today arrives a new exceptional case, from filmmaker Yemi Bamiro, exploring the impressive life's work of Kwame Brathwaite—a photographer, performer and civil rights advocate who represented a special politico-aesthetic perspective.
In partnership with his sibling Elombe, he effectively created the slogan “Black Is Beautiful” throughout the mid-century era by capturing the Harlem models in New York: youthful women of color who emerged as the sensational template for beauty, abandoning typical beauty standards and the usual Caucasian ideal of femininity.
The Power of Three Words
This powerful statement evolved into a transformative call to action, an brilliant three-word declaration for progress. Merely to assert that African Americans possessed beauty proved to be a liberating force in art, politics and the arts. The photographer emerged as integral to the Black power global Black movement by documenting Muhammad Ali prior to his historic Rumble in the Jungle in the seventies.
He served as the primary visual documentarian for the Jackson 5's international performances, and subsequently assumed the role of the resident artist for the historic Apollo theatre, assembling an extraordinary archive of musical pioneers. Alongside Elombe, he was the key organizer behind securing Nelson Mandela to address the public in the community.
Historical Recognition
Brathwaite's son the younger Brathwaite is interviewed the their mission to achieve due acknowledgment for his father's legacy after he was painfully excluded in the prestigious Smithsonian institution, inaugurated by the former president in recent years.
The film further reveals the profoundly sorrowful origin of the artist's dedication to photography: the shocking images of the lynching martyr, the teenage Black murder victim whose bereaved parent defiantly insisted on an uncovered casket so the horrific reality of racial hatred would not be covered up.
Through Darkness to Empowerment
From this image of tragedy, the artist encountered a form of anti-epiphany that guided him toward images of community. His images powerfully conveyed community pride and typically nuanced in approach: he developed a new symbolic representation of pride through which activist groups could unite.
This represents an inspiring record of creative genius that still resonate across generations.
