We have witnessed countless compelling features about visual artists: Tish Murtha. Maybe the film medium truly excels when presenting particularly vivid still images. Now comes a new outstanding instance, by filmmaker Yemi Bamiro, exploring the extraordinary life's work of Kwame Brathwaite—a photographer, musician and social justice champion who exemplified a unique politico-aesthetic approach.
In partnership with his sibling Elombe, he effectively created the phrase “Black Is Beautiful” throughout the sixties by capturing the Grandassa Models in the cultural epicenter: young Black women who emerged as the sensational standard for aesthetics, abandoning typical grooming practices and the predominant Caucasian model of female beauty.
The Impact of Three Words
This powerful statement evolved into a radical unifying message, an inspired concise declaration for transformation. Just stating that people of color radiated beauty became a liberating power in culture, social movements and culture. The photographer emerged as part of the social justice pan-Africanist cause by capturing images of Muhammad Ali prior to his historic Zaire bout in the seventies.
He served as the exclusive visual documentarian for the Jackson 5's continental journey, and subsequently was named the house photographer for the iconic Apollo theatre, assembling an amazing archive of black musicians. Together with his brother, he was the driving force behind securing the South African leader to address the public in New York.
Family Legacy
The photographer's offspring Kwame Jr shares the their campaign to achieve appropriate credit for his parent's achievements after he was unjustly ignored in the nation's capital's National Museum of African American History and Culture, inaugurated by the political leader in recent years.
This documentary further reveals the deeply tragic inspiration of Brathwaite's dedication to photography: the horrendous images of the young victim, the adolescent Black murder victim whose mourning family member courageously insisted on an uncovered casket so the brutal truth of racist violence would not be concealed.
Amidst Sorrow to Hope
From this vision of horror, Brathwaite discovered a type of anti-epiphany that led him toward photographs of beauty. His photographs powerfully conveyed community pride and typically not overtly political: he established a fresh symbolic representation of empowerment through which political movements could gather.
The documentary stands as an captivating testament of cultural impact that still resonate decades later.
