We have witnessed numerous engaging features about visual artists: Martin Parr. It could be the film medium particularly shines when presenting remarkably striking visual compositions. Here we have a new exceptional instance, from writer-director Yemi Bamiro, chronicling the remarkable life's work of Kwame Brathwaite—a creative force, performer and African American activist who represented a special artistic-political approach.
Alongside his sibling Elombe, he pioneered the slogan “Black Is Beautiful” in the 1960s by capturing the Harlem models in Harlem: young women of color who emerged as the transformative standard for beauty, rejecting typical cosmetic products and the established Caucasian ideal of female beauty.
The Power of a Simple Phrase
Black Is Beautiful transformed into a radical rallying cry, an visionary concise prose poem for change. Just stating that black people possessed beauty emerged as a transformative influence in culture, social movements and creative expression. The artist grew into a key figure in the Black power African diaspora struggle by documenting the sports icon leading up to his iconic championship fight in that era.
He became the exclusive photographer for the band's international performances, and eventually was named the official visual chronicler for the legendary cultural institution, assembling an incredible archive of African American artists. Alongside Elombe, he emerged as the central figure behind securing the South African leader to appear in the community.
Personal Journey
Brathwaite's son the younger Brathwaite recounts the personal quest to ensure due acknowledgment for his parent's achievements after he was hurtfully excluded in Washington DC's cultural museum, opened by Barack Obama in this century.
The film further reveals the inexpressibly painful genesis of the artist's passion for image making: the horrendous images of the young victim, the young civil rights lynching victim whose grieving mother boldly insisted on an open coffin so the horrific reality of racist violence might not be hidden.
Amidst Sorrow to Empowerment
Through this vision of violence, the artist discovered a kind of transformative realization that directed him toward visual representations of aspiration. His images were eloquent of community pride and frequently not overtly political: he developed a fresh symbolic representation of strength around which social causes could mobilize.
It is an captivating record of artistic vision that still empower through the years.
