History has seen countless engaging features highlighting visual artists: Tish Murtha. Maybe the film medium particularly shines when presenting particularly vivid photographs. Here arrives another outstanding case, by filmmaker Yemi Bamiro, chronicling the impressive career of Kwame Brathwaite—a creative force, performer and social justice champion who embodied a distinct artistic-political perspective.
Together with his family member Elombe, he virtually invented the expression “Black Is Beautiful” in the mid-century era by capturing the African American women in the cultural epicenter: emerging Black women who became the transformative standard for beauty, moving beyond traditional cosmetic products and the established white ideal of female beauty.
The Power of a Simple Phrase
This powerful statement transformed into a transformative rallying cry, an inspired concise manifesto for change. Simply declaring that African Americans possessed beauty emerged as a empowering force in art, politics and the arts. The photographer grew into a key figure in the social justice pan-Africanist struggle by photographing Muhammad Ali prior to his historic Zaire bout in the seventies.
He was appointed the official photographer for the Jackson 5's African tour, and subsequently assumed the role of the house photographer for the historic Apollo theatre, creating an extraordinary archive of black musicians. Together with Elombe, he became the driving force behind securing Nelson Mandela to appear in Harlem.
Family Legacy
Brathwaite's son Kwame Jr shares the personal campaign to secure appropriate credit for his father's legacy after he was unjustly excluded in the nation's capital's Smithsonian institution, established by the political leader in 2016.
This documentary additionally explores the inexpressibly painful origin of the photographer's interest in image making: the horrendous pictures of the lynching martyr, the teenage Black lynching victim whose mourning family member boldly insisted on an public viewing so the horrific reality of racial hatred could not be hidden.
Through Darkness to Empowerment
Through this vision of violence, the artist found a kind of transformative realization that guided him toward photographs of aspiration. His images were eloquent of community pride and often subtle in messaging: he curated a new symbolic representation of empowerment through which activist groups could mobilize.
This represents an inspiring chronicle of cultural impact that still empower through the years.
