Kwame Brathwaite

Coincides with an exhibition of Brathwaite's work, 2019.

As if convinced that all divination of the future is somehow a re-visioning of the past, Kwame Dawes reminds us of the clairvoyance of haunting. The lyric poems in City of Bones: A Testament constitute a restless jeremiad for our times, and Dawes’s inimitable voice peoples this collection with multitudes of souls urgently and forcefully singing, shouting, groaning, and dreaming about the African diasporic present and future. As the twentieth collection in the poet’s hallmarked career, City of Bones reaches a pinnacle, adding another chapter to the grand narrative of invention and discovery cradled in the art of empathy that has defined his prodigious body of work. Dawes’s formal mastery is matched only by the precision of his insights into what is at stake in our lives today. These poems are shot through with music from the drum to reggae to the blues to jazz to gospel, proving that Dawes is the ambassador of words and worlds.

“This coffee-table book is the first-ever collection of works devoted to celebrating black models. Fashion devotees will find glorious images of supers such as Iman, Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell, Joan Smalls, and Adwoa Aboah alongside interviews and personal essays.” —Vogue Filled with revealing essays, interviews, and stunning photographs, Supreme Models pays tribute to black models past and present: from the first to be featured in catalogs and on magazine covers, like Iman, Donyale Luna, and Beverly Johnson, to the supermodels who reigned in the nineties—Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell, and Veronica Webb. The book also observes the newest generation of models—Adut Akech, Jourdan Dunn, and Joan Smalls—who are shaking up the fashion industry by speaking out about racial prejudice while becoming social media sensations. Written by celebrity fashion stylist and journalist Marcellas Reynolds, Supreme Models features more than 70 women from the last 75 years. Reynolds writes, “I hope that everyone who reads this book learns something about the models included within—and more about the business of fashion and modeling. But what I want most is for Supreme Models to be a source for the little boys, or girls, who like my childhood self, need to see themselves represented in a positive light.” The book, filled with gorgeous photographs of the women, details their most memorable campaigns, covers, editorials, and runway shows. Black models have been influencing fashion and pop culture for decades, reshaping beauty standards and boundaries. Supreme Models is a celebration of their monumental impact.

Kamau Brathwaite's poetry offers stunning collages devoted to the history, mythology, and language of the African diaspora, and has gained him a world reputation. Middle Passages, his most recent collection, is his sixteenth poetry volume, but his first with an American publisher. With notes of protest and lament, the fourteen poems of Middle Passages address the effects of the Middle Passage of slavery on the New World, and celebrate great musicians (Ellington, Bessie Smith), poets, heroes of the resistance, and Third World leaders Kwame Nkrumah, Walter Rodney, and Nelson Mandela. And as the London Times Literary Supplement noted, it is "a poetry that moves between rage and tenderness, doubt and displacement to affirmation... Middle Passages is a potent and effective book, a work of passion and integrity."

Tucked away in the dusty halls of the Smithsonian archives and nearly forgotten by most historians, black culture is a vast, complex, interconnected web of different people, trends, and lifestyles. Although absent from our collective memory, Deborah Willis has dug through the archives and hunted down the remnants that tell the wonderful and tragic history of a people. Tackling all subjects with bravery and frankness, Deborah Willis’s work is a true treasure to behold. Black, A Celebration of a Culture, presents the vibrant panorama of 20th-century black culture in America and around the world. The photos tell one story that resonates throughout the world. Broken up into segments that examine in detail such subjects as children, work, art, beauty, Saturday night and Sunday morning, the photos detail the history and the evolution of a culture. Each photograph, hand-picked by Deborah Willis, America's leading historian of African-American photography, celebrates the world of music, art, fashion, sports, family, worship or play. With over 500 photographs from every time period from the birth of photography to the birth of hip hop, this book is a truly joyous exhibition of black culture. From Jessie Owens to Barry Bonds, Ella Fitzgerald to Halle Berry, Black: A Celebration of a Culture is joyous and inspiring.

"A Picture Gallery of the Soul presents the work of more than one hundred Black American artists whose practice incorporates the photographic medium. Organized by the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota, this group exhibition samples a range of photographic expressions produced over three centuries, from traditional photography to mixed media and conceptual art. From the daguerreotypes made by Jules Lion in New Orleans in 1840 to the Instagram post of the Baltimore Uprising made by Devin Allen in 2015, photography has chronicled Black American life, and Black Americans have defined the possibilities of photography. Frederick Douglass recognized the quick, easy, and inexpensive reproducibility of photography and developed a theoretical framework for understanding its impact on public discourse, which he delivered as a series of four lectures during the Civil War. The subject of 160 photographic portraits and the most photographed American of the nineteenth century, Douglass anticipated that the history of American photography and the history of Black American culture and politics would be deeply intertwined. A Picture Gallery of the Soul honors the diverse visions of Blackness made manifest through the lens of photography. Published in association with the Katherine E. Nash Gallery. Exhibition dates: Katherine E. Nash Gallery: September 13-December 10, 2022"--

"This collection of photographic portraits traces 150 years of U.S. history through the lives of well-known abolitionists, artists, scientists, writers, statesmen, entertainers, and sports figures. Drawing on the photography collection of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, Deborah Willis celebrates the ways in which these images furthered recognition and equality in America, and even today challenge us all to uphold America's highest ideals and promises." --Book Jacket.

THE STORY: A moving and celebratory musical play in which hats become a springboard for an exploration of black history and identity as seen through the eyes of a young black woman who has come down South to stay with her aunt after her brother is