Kwame Brathwaite


Kwame Brathwaite was an American photojournalist and activist known for popularizing the phrase "Black is Beautiful" and documenting life and culture in Harlem and Africa.
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Life and work

Born Gilbert Ronald Brathwaite in Brooklyn on January 1, 1938 and brought up in the South Bronx, to immigrant parents from Barbados, who chronicled the cultural, political, and social developments of Harlem, Africa, and the African diaspora. His parents were Cecil and Margaret Brathwaite. As a boy in the early 1950s, he was enrolled at the School of Industrial Art. He adopted the name Kwame in the early 1960s, a tribute to Kwame Nkrumah, the first leader of post-colonial Ghana.
With his older brother Elombe Brath, Brathwaite founded the African Jazz Art Society and Studios in 1956 and Grandassa Models in 1962.
In 2021, the Pérez Art Museum Miami acquired "Untitled "," 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.
Brathwaite died in Manhattan on April 1, 2023, at the age of 85. He was survived by his wife Sikolo, his son Kwame Samori Brathwaite, 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. The 1962 pageant was titled The Original African Coiffure and Fashion Extravaganza Designed to Restore Our Racial Pride & Standards. 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. The Naturally pageants ran for five years, with the last one held in 1966.
In the 1960s, his work also appeared in New York Amsterdam News, The City Sun, and The Daily Challenge. He photographed concerts of Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, James Brown, and Muhammad Ali.
In 2017, Brathwaite was honored at the 75th Aperture Gala.
Yemi Bamiro's documentary Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story on Brathwaite's life and work was shown as part of the Official Competition of the BFI London Film Festival in 2025.
Brathwaite's work was included in the 2025 exhibition Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 at the National Gallery of Art.

Exhibitions