King Is Dead: Screening and Conversation

Kamoinge Workshop artist James M. Mannas Jr. screens his film King is Dead (1968), an account of the reactions of his New York community to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The screening is followed by a conversation with Mannas and filmmaker RaMell Ross, moderated by Whitney assistant curator Carrie Springer. RaMell Ross is a visual artist, filmmaker, and writer based in Rhode Island and Alabama. His feature documentary, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, won a Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for an Oscar at the 91st Academy Awards. Presented in collaboration with Aperture, this series of programs features conversations with artists from the Kamoinge Workshop included in the exhibition Working Together: Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop currently on view at the Whitney. The talks explore the group’s genesis in Harlem in the 1960s, its role in the Black Arts movement, and the multidisciplinary interests and practices of its members, bringing together artists from the Kamoinge Workshop with scholars and critics of Black arts and culture. Aperture, a not-for-profit foundation dedicated to photography, connects the photo community and its audiences with the most inspiring work, the sharpest ideas, and with each other—in print, in person, and online.