Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story
Yemi Bamiro’s enthralling documentary celebrates photographer and activist Kwame Brathwaite, whose monumental work chronicled the joy, beauty, and glory of Black lives and experiences.
Description
For photographer Kwame Brathwaite, the camera served as an instrument of love for his people. From capturing the mirth flowing through the streets of 1960s Harlem to following the Jackson 5 on a tour of Africa, Brathwaite chronicled Black America in all its glory. It was Brathwaite along with his brother Elombe Brath who coined the now ubiquitous phrase, “Black is Beautiful.” Somewhere along the way, his grand achievements faded into a forgotten past until his family fought to resurrect his legacy and restore his place in the African American canon. His photographs—now collected by the likes of Gabrielle Union, Jesse Williams, and Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz—are not just reflections of Black joy but serve as a defiant insistence on the beauty that is inherent in Black lives and experiences. Yemi Bemiro’s enthralling documentary celebrates Brathwaite’s life, art, and his monumental contribution to Black history. —Bedatri Choudhury
Biographies
Yemi Bamiro is a documentarian based in London. Reggae Fever: David Rodigan (2018); One Man and His Shoes (2020), a nominee for a British Independent Film Awards Discovery Award; the series Fight the Power How Hip Hop Changed the World (2023), winner of the Royal Television Society, UK’s RTS Television Award; and Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy (2025) are among his works.
