Kwame Brathwaite (January 1, 1938 – April 1, 2023) was an American photojournalist and activist known for popularizing the phrase "Black is Beautiful" and documenting life and culture in Harlem and Africa.[1]
Life and work
Born Gilbert Ronald Brathwaite in Brooklyn on January 1, 1938[2] and brought up in the South Bronx, to immigrant parents from Barbados,[3] who chronicled the cultural, political, and social developments of Harlem, Africa, and the African diaspora.[4] His parents were Cecil and Margaret (Maloney) Brathwaite.[5] As a boy in the early 1950s, he was enrolled at School of Industrial Art (now the High School of Art and Design). He adopted the name Kwame in the early 1960s, a tribute to Kwame Nkrumah, the first leader of post-colonial Ghana.[3][6]
In 2021, the Pérez Art Museum Miami acquired "Untitled (AJASS Model on Black Background)" (1970s/2019)," portraying a female model figure dressed in patterns resembling quilts created in African American communities, such as those made at Gee's Bend, in Alabama. The artist is a major figure in the Black is Beautiful movement.[10][11]
Brathwaite died in Manhattan on April 1, 2023, at the age of 85.[12][13] He was survived by his wife Sikolo (whom he married c. 1966), his son Kwame Samori Brathwaite (known as Kwame Jr., born c. 1974), and his daughter Ndola Carlest.
Naturally pageants
On January 28, 1962, with his brother Elombe Brath, Brathwaite staged the Naturally '62 pageant, the first of a series of pageants to feature only black models.[8] The 1962 pageant was titled The Original African Coiffure and Fashion Extravaganza Designed to Restore Our Racial Pride & Standards.[14][15] Held at the Harlem Purple Manor, a nightclub on East 125th Street, it helped to popularize the phrase "Black Is Beautiful" that was printed on the pageant's poster.[16][17][18] The Naturally pageants ran for five years, with the last one held in 1966.[15]
