We have witnessed countless compelling features highlighting image makers: Martin Parr. Maybe the documentary format particularly shines when showcasing particularly vivid photographs. Here we have one more outstanding example, from writer-director Yemi Bamiro, exploring the remarkable career of Kwame Brathwaite—an artist, artist and African American activist who embodied a unique artistic-political vision.
Alongside his family member Elombe, he pioneered the phrase “Black Is Beautiful” in the 1960s by photographing the Grandassa Models in New York: emerging Black women who became the sensational standard for aesthetics, rejecting typical cosmetic products and the established Caucasian model of womanhood.
The Impact of a Revolutionary Slogan
Black Is Beautiful transformed into a transformative unifying message, an inspired concise prose poem for progress. Just declaring that people of color radiated beauty proved to be a transformative force in art, politics and the arts. The photographer grew into a key figure in the Black power pan-Africanist cause by photographing the sports icon leading up to his legendary Zaire bout in 1974.
He became the official image creator for the musical group's international performances, and eventually became the house photographer for the legendary Apollo theatre, creating an extraordinary collection of musical pioneers. In collaboration with his sibling, he emerged as the key organizer behind securing the anti-apartheid icon to address the public in New York.
Family Legacy
Brathwaite's son the younger Brathwaite shares the their quest to secure due acknowledgment for his parent's achievements after he was painfully ignored in Washington DC's National Museum of African American History and Culture, opened by Barack Obama in this century.
This documentary further reveals the profoundly sorrowful genesis of the artist's dedication to photography: the shocking photographs of the lynching martyr, the adolescent civil rights murder victim whose grieving mother courageously demanded an uncovered casket so the violent nature of racist violence might not be hidden.
Through Darkness to Hope
Through this vision of violence, Brathwaite encountered a kind of profound understanding that led him toward images of beauty. His work beautifully expressed celebratory strength and often subtle in messaging: he curated a new iconography of strength through which social causes could mobilize.
The documentary stands as an captivating record of creative genius that continues to empower decades later.
