Game changers: Kwame Brathwaite

Kwame Brathwaite's photograph of Grandassa model Nomsa Brath, centre promoting the natural hairstyle as part of the Wigs Parisian protest in Harlem, 1963. (LA Times)

A New York City based photographer, Kwame Brathwaite is best known for capturing the early stages of, and helping cement, the development of the ‘black is beautiful’ movement, in the 1960s in the USA. He was born in Brooklyn in 1938.

What did he do?
In his early life, Brathwaite was focused on helping fellow black creatives. As a teenager in 1956, he established the social club known as the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios (AJASS). The club booked rising musicians throughout the late 50s and 60s, including John Coltrane and Philly Joe Jones.

In 1962, AJASS formed “Grandassa Models, a troupe promoting black nationalist beauty principles through models with natural hair, curvy figures, various skin tones and African-inspired fashion.” It really was the first modelling organisation of its kind.

In August 1963, Brathwaite photographed a protest over Wigs Parisian, a white-owned wig shop that opened on Harlem’s 125th Street near the Apollo Theatre. The photo, “provided a glimpse into tensions over the ways black women wore their hair in the 1960s and the explosion of the ‘Black Is Beautiful’ movement” and guided Brathwaite throughout his 60-year career.

What impact did he have?
The impact of Kwame Brathwaite’s photography is profound. Not only did it serve to empower women of colour in America, it laid the very foundations for diversity in fashion, but particularly in high-end modelling and advertising.

Read more about Kwame via the links below.
Kwame Brathwaite
LA Times
The Guardian
Vice

Blog Profile Photo: Self-portrait of Kwame Brathwaite in Harlem, 1964. (LA Times)

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