We have witnessed countless compelling documentaries highlighting visual artists: Vivian Maier. Perhaps the film medium particularly shines when displaying particularly vivid visual compositions. Here we have another outstanding case, from filmmaker Yemi Bamiro, exploring the remarkable life's work of Kwame Brathwaite—a creative force, artist and civil rights advocate who represented a special artistic-political vision.
Together with his family member Elombe, he virtually invented the phrase “Black Is Beautiful” in the sixties by photographing the African American women in Harlem: emerging Black women who transformed into the transformative standard for beauty, rejecting traditional beauty standards and the usual white model of female beauty.
The Impact of a Simple Phrase
Black Is Beautiful evolved into a transformative unifying message, an inspired concise prose poem for progress. Simply to assert that black people radiated beauty proved to be a transformative power in culture, politics and creative expression. The artist emerged as a key figure in the Black power pan-Africanist struggle by documenting the legendary boxer before his legendary championship fight in the seventies.
He was appointed the official image creator for the band's international performances, and eventually assumed the role of the official visual chronicler for the historic Harlem venue, assembling an extraordinary portfolio of black musicians. Together with Elombe, he was the key organizer behind securing the anti-apartheid icon to address the public in the community.
Family Legacy
His son his namesake recounts the personal campaign to ensure proper recognition for his parent's achievements after he was hurtfully excluded in the prestigious National Museum of African American History and Culture, opened by the former president in recent years.
The film further reveals the inexpressibly painful inspiration of the photographer's passion for visual storytelling: the shocking photographs of the young victim, the young African American tragic figure whose bereaved parent defiantly insisted on an public viewing so the brutal truth of bigoted brutality would not be covered up.
Through Darkness to Hope
In this image of horror, the visionary found a form of transformative realization that guided him toward visual representations of beauty. His photographs beautifully expressed celebratory strength and typically subtle in messaging: he curated a innovative visual language of empowerment around which activist groups could mobilize.
This represents an captivating chronicle of creative genius that persists in resonate decades later.
