History has seen countless fascinating features focusing on image makers: Tish Murtha. It could be cinematic storytelling truly excels when presenting particularly vivid photographs. Today arrives another remarkable case, by filmmaker Yemi Bamiro, exploring the extraordinary professional journey of Kwame Brathwaite—an artist, performer and social justice champion who embodied a distinct artistic-political vision.
Alongside his family member Elombe, he effectively created the slogan “Black Is Beautiful” throughout the sixties by capturing the African American women in New York: emerging women of color who became the transformative standard for beauty, rejecting conventional cosmetic products and the usual Caucasian standard of femininity.
The Influence of a Simple Phrase
The iconic phrase transformed into a powerful rallying cry, an brilliant concise manifesto for progress. Just to assert that African Americans possessed beauty proved to be a transformative influence in culture, social movements and the arts. Brathwaite emerged as a key figure in the civil rights pan-Africanist cause by photographing the sports icon prior to his iconic Rumble in the Jungle in 1974.
He became the official photographer for the band's continental journey, and later became the official visual chronicler for the historic Apollo theatre, creating an extraordinary archive of African American artists. In collaboration with his sibling, he was the driving force behind arranging for the South African leader to speak in Harlem.
Personal Journey
Brathwaite's son his namesake recounts the family's quest to secure due acknowledgment for his father's legacy after he was unjustly excluded in the nation's capital's National Museum of African American History and Culture, opened by the political leader in 2016.
The feature also recounts the inexpressibly painful origin of the artist's interest in visual storytelling: the shocking photographs of Emmett Till, the adolescent African American murder victim whose mourning family member boldly demanded an open coffin so the horrific reality of racist violence would not be covered up.
Amidst Sorrow to Empowerment
Through this vision of horror, the visionary discovered a kind of transformative realization that directed him toward images of beauty. His work powerfully conveyed celebratory strength and often nuanced in approach: he established a fresh iconography of pride around which activist groups could mobilize.
The documentary stands as an inspiring record of creative genius that still empower decades later.
