FULL JMJ BIO

T. T. Griffith Archives

James M. Mannas, Jr.

James (Jimmie) M. Mannas, Jr. (b.1941) is an African American photographer, director, cinematographer and writer. He is best known as a founding member of the Kamoinge Workshop, a ground-breaking, New York City based African American photographers collective established in 1963. His early still photography captured the vibrant street life of New York City’s black communities as well as the city’s emerging avant-garde music scene. 

His film and still photographic documentation of post-colonial Guyana was ground-breaking as well. This culminated in Aggro Seizeman, Guyana’s first motion picture, released in 1975. He amassed hundreds of photographs from his Guyana period between 1971 and 1974. Mannas’ body of work includes still photography, motion pictures and documentary work, as well as cinematography, editing and screen writing. His photographs are in the permanent collections of national organizations such as Museum of Modern Art, MOMA, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and international institutions such as the University of Ghana.

Early Life and Education

James “Jimmie” Mannas, Jr. was born in Newark, NJ, on September 15, 1941. His family moved to New York City two years later and settled in Harlem. He received a Brownie Hawkeye camera at the age of eleven, and soon realized he’d found his lifelong profession. He graduated from the city’s High School of Commerce in 1958 and enrolled in the New York Institute of Photography, where he received his degree in 1960. He then went on to receive a degree in film editing from the School of Visual Arts in 1963.

During this period, Mannas and other young black photographers found themselves isolated in a field dominated by white men. Mannas, along with Louis Draper, Albert Fennar, Ray Francis, Herman Howard, Earl James, Calvin Mercer, Herbert Randall, Larry Stewart, Shawn Walker and Calvin Wilson founded the Kamoinge Workshop, where they could pool their connections and resources. They were mentored by the established African American photographer, Roy DeCarava, who became the collective’s first director in 1963.  

The Kamoinge Workshop remains the oldest collaborative group of photographers in the nation and is still operative today. Kamoinge is a Kenyan, Kikuyu word meaning “a group of people acting together.” Realizing the strength of numbers, as well as the sheer talent of their members, the collective was able to secure advertising work and gain entrance into museums, publications and commercial galleries that were previously inaccessible.

“The magazines wouldn’t support our work. So, we wanted to encourage each other,” 

co-founder, Louis Draper related in an interview. The group was able to exhibit and sell their photographs depicting ordinary African Americans at home, on the street, and in everyday life, both in the United States and abroad, something mainstream America rarely saw. They also mined the rich cultural life of Harlem, photographing jazz musicians and other artists. DeCarava told Photography Magazine in 1970 that Kamoinge was “an attempt to develop a conscious awareness of being black, in order to say things about ourselves as black people that only we could say.”  Jimmie Mannas credits Roy DeCarava as being one of his earliest mentors.

In 1969 Mannas received a certificate from New York University for studies in film and television. He credits NYU Professor, James Beverage for giving him the model for his later career development. Like Beverage, Mannas formed his own production company, producing independent documentaries and television films and acted as a consultant for a foreign government ministry. Another Mannas mentor and advisor was Robert Frank, a Swiss-American photographer and documentary filmmaker.

Thanks to the Federal Community Action Programs, part of the Economic Opportunities Act of 1964, Mannas was able to jumpstart his early career, while still formalizing his education. He became the president of the International Black Photographers group from 1967 to 1969. As staff photographer and senior teacher in the photography department of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Youth in Action Community Corporation, he taught in that community between 1968 and 1969. Moving on, he taught photography at Mind Builders in the Bronx, under founding Director, Madaha Kinsey-Lamb from 1979 through 1981.

Career in Filmmaking and Fine Art Photography

Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, Mannas took his camera to the street and documented the shock and anger felt in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant. His experimental film King Is Dead (1968) is a portrait of a community grimly expressing their anger and hurt with not only the death of King, but the state of affairs for all Black Americans in 1968. Mannas’ use of close-ups, cutaways and archival footage is a feature of this black and white documentary.

Both King Is Dead and Kick (1969) were shot while Mannas was still a student at NYU. Kick documents the effect of the heroin epidemic in Harlem. Like all of his documentary work, it was hard-hitting and uncompromising. Mannas captured life as it was presented to him, with no filter other than his artistic sense of pacing and presentation. 

Mannas’ fine art photography consists of serial themes:  a music series, street series, dance series, drug series, his Guyana series as well as Kamoinge Workshop series.

His music series saw Mannas as a fly on the wall capturing the burgeoning Free Jazz, avant-garde movement of the late 50s and 1960s wherein a polyphony of voices like Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor and Marzette Watts pushed the improvisational boundaries of the genre placing emphasis on expressing the soul of each musician.

Mannas became a part of this experimental music scene which found its home under Bernard Stollman’s independent outsider label ESP-Disk.  Mannas became a trusted member of Marzette Watt’s entourage gaining unprecedented access to photograph both his professional and private life.  His low angle torso shot of Watts is featured on the 1966 ESP album Marzette Watts and Company:  Backdrop for Urban Revolution. 

Years Abroad, and Return

African Americans still found it difficult to gain access to viable career pathways in the United States, despite government programs. The Civil Rights era moved into the Black Power era, forcing doors open on all fronts.  This new movement refused to take “no” or “wait,” for an answer. African Americans began to link their struggle with similar struggles of Africans worldwide. In Africa and in the Caribbean, the leaders of newly independent nations reached out to African American professionals in many fields, encouraging them to leave the U.S. and utilize their talents in these new nations, where they would be appreciated and respected. 

Mannas heeded the call and moved to Guyana, formerly British Guiana, a nation on the northern coast of South America. There, he served as consultant to the Ministry of Information from 1971-1974, under Forbes Burnham, that newly independent county’s first Prime Minister. 

It was while in Guyana that Mannas became the managing director of Gillham Productions (1974-76). He wrote a screenplay from a story by Frederick Hamley Case,

currently Guyana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Paris. That screenplay became Aggro Seizeman (1975), Guyana’s first feature film, which he 

The co-directed with Brian Stuart-Young. 

A major body of his still photography archives comprise his “Guyana Series,” a catalogue of his years spent in that country. “The country is so exciting visually that it would take ten or more years to come away with a complete image of it,” he told his archivist many years later.

Mannas returned to the United States in 1976 with new lifeblood – a prolific time in his 50-year career. He founded and directed his own film production company; New Image Media.  He became a member of the Association of Video and Filmmakers in 1977.  

Mannas presided over the Kamoinge Workshop as president from 1976 to 1977. He was instrumental in organizing the International Black Photographers Annual Awards Dinner which honored African-American photographers of note. Under his watch the organization honored African American photography greats such as James VanDerZee and Roy DeCarava in 1979, Gordon Parks and P.H. Polk in 1980, Moneta Sleet and Charles Stewart in 1981, and Richard Saunders and Marvin & Morgan Smith in 1982. 4

Today, James Mannas, Jr., lives in Brooklyn, New York and is currently advising in the cataloging of his vast photographic archive.  His Guyana and Music Series alone, comprises over 15,000 images. His complete body of work is permanently housed in the TT Griffith Archives in New York.

Filmography

• King is Dead: (1968)  – a cinéma vérité man-on-the-street documentary interspersed with archival footage. Shot in April 1968, in the immediacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination.
• The Folks: (1968-1969) – director, film series for NYU Graduate Program.
• Kick: (1969) – director, short documentary of the heroin epidemic in Harlem.
• Naifa: (1970) – writer/director of animated film about Black nationalism. “Naifa” is the Swahili word for “nation.”
• Young People: (1972) – Director of film series for Guyana’s Ministry of Information, Youth and Culture. 
• The Fighters: (1974) – cinematographer for William Greaves’ sports documentary of the first Ali/Frazier Madison Square Garden fight.
• Aggro Seizeman: (1975) co-director with Brian Stuart-Young, and screenplay. First Guyanese-based feature film.
• Head and Heart: (1977) director, editor of profile of the notable African American illustrator Tom Feelings (5/19/1933 – 8/25/2003). The artist describes his childhood, artistic training, travels, his work as an illustrator, and love for his people and culture.
• Eyes on the Prize, “Power! 1966-1968” : (1990) PBS documentary. Credited for “special thanks” by directors and producers.
• Eyes on the Prize II (Parts III & IV) Power! The Promised Land: (2008) PBS documentary. Credited for “special thanks” by directors and producers.
• A Pinch of Soul: (2005) director, African-American cooking series. 

Video Production

• Black Veterans for Social Justice, A William Greaves Production (1983) cameraman
• Mind Builders (1979 – 1981) teacher
• The Plight of Vietnam Black Vets (1983) director, cameraman 
• The Cities (1984) WCBS-TV, photographer and cameraman 
• Black News (1984) WNEW-TV episodes – cameraman 
• Museum of Broadcasting (1970-1971) consultant
• Brooklyn Museum (1970) consultant
• Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (1969) film consultant 

Exhibitions

• The Glasgow Gallery, Harlem, NY (1961) “Theme: Final Man” Kamoinge Workshop 
• Edward Steichen Academy of Art, Danbury Connecticut (1964) photography         exhibition 
• The Kamoinge Gallery, Harlem, NY (1965) “Theme: Black”
• Howard University, Washington, DC (1965) photographic exhibition
• Black Arts Repertory Theatre School, Detroit, MI (1965)
• University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN (1966) photographic exhibition
• The Kamoinge Gallery, Harlem, NY (1966) “The Negro Woman” 
• Countee Cullen Library, NY, NY (1966) “Perspective” Kamoinge Workshop 
• Brooklyn Children Museum, Brooklyn, NY (1970) solo exhibition 
• Amherst College, Amherst, MA (1971) photographic exhibition
• The Studio Museum of Harlem, Harlem, NY (1972) the Kamoinge Workshop 
• Edward Steichen Memorial, West Redding, CT (1972) photographic exhibit
• Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA (1973) Kamoinge Workshop
• Bishop High School, Georgetown, Guyana, (1973) photographic exhibition 
• San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA (1973) Black Photographers Annual Exhibit
• International Center of Photography, NY, NY (1974) Inaugural Exhibition 
• Countee Cullen Library, NY, NY (1994) Kamoinge Workshop

•   New York Public Library Center for the Humanities, NY, NY (1998) ”Subject Matters: Photography, Romana Javitz and the New York Public Library”

• Nordstrom Department Stores, 5 Stores (2006) Kamoinge Workshop curated by Roy DeCarava
• Kenkeleba Gallery, NY, NY (2016)  Kamoinge Workshop

Permanent Collections

• Museum of Modern Art, NYC, NY, 
• Studio Museum of Harlem, NYC, NY
• National Museum of African-American History & Culture, Washington, DC
• Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
• Howard University, Washington, DC,
• Clarke Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA
• New York Public Library, Schomburg Center, NYC, NY
• New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzian Building, NYC, NY
• University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
• University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana 
• University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 

Publications/Periodicals

• Liberator, “The Myth of Negro Progress”,(January 1964)
• Liberator, “Narcotics in The Ghetto”, (February 1964)
• Liberator, “War On The Poor” (August 1965)
• Camera Magazine – Harlem – Kamoinge Workshop, (July, 1966)
• Black Photographers Annual, (1973, 1974)
• The New York Times Film Reviews, (1975)
• This is Guyana,  – Peoples Progressive Party, Propaganda Committee (1977)
• Black Photographers 1940-1988, Deborah Willis-Thomas (1989) 
• Self and Shadow, Issues 114-117 – Aperture Foundation, (1989)
• Culture Front Magazine, (1994)
• Collecting African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas

            Halima Taha – (1998)

• Black Liberation in the Americas, Fritz  Gysin  and Christopher  Mulvey  (2001)
• The Louis Draper Project – Kamoinge, Part 2: Early Exhibitions” 

           (February/21/2013)

• “Transcending the Fixity of Race:  The Kamoinge Workshop and the Question of  a “Black Aesthetic” in Photography.”Erina Duganne  – New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement – edited by Lisa Gail Collins, Margo Natalie Crawford (2006)

• The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography – Erina Duganne – (2010)

• Timeless, Photographs by Kamoinge”, Anthony Barboza & Herb Robinson | coedited by Vincent Alabiso (2015)
• Guyana Back Then – Photographs by Jimmie Mannas (2016)
• Aperture – Vision & Justice, (2016)
• New York Times “Kamoinge’s Half-Century of African-American  Photography” (January/7/2016)
• Wall Street Journal “Kamoinge Creativity, Shadows and Painted Portraits” (January/8/2016)
• New York Times “Louis Draper and ‘Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge” (February/4/2016)
• Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop

           Exhibition Catalog, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts – (January, 2020)

References

 Berger, Maurice (January 7, 2016) “Kamoinge’s Half-Century of African American Photography.” New York Times, Retrieved May 14, 2019.

² Jackson, Ashawanta, “When the white establishment ignored these black photographers, the Kamoinge collective was born,” Timeline Blog, March 15, 2018. www.timeline.com. Retrieved May 14, 2019.

³ Jackson, Ashawanta, “When the white establishment ignored these black photographers, the Kamoinge collective was born,” Timeline Blog, March 15, 2018. www.timeline.com.

4 Anthony Barboza & Herb Robinson | coedited by Vincent Alabiso,  

“Timeless Photographs by Kamoinge” –  2015 (Page 76)

External Links

• Jimmie Mannas, Filmmaker, Photographer 

      https://prabook.com/web/jimmie.mannas/1720037

• King is Dead (documentary, 1968) https://archive.org/details/KingIsDead

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWyEEOfMEp0

• Naifa (animated motion picture short, 1970, New York – Jymie Productions)

     https://catalog.nypl.org/record=b17611416~S1

• The Fighters (documentary, 1974, James Mannas, Cinematography) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162844/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt
• Aggro Seizeman (motion picture, 1975, James Mannas and Brian Stuart-Young, directors, F. Hamley Case, story, James Mannas, screenplay) 

      https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072616/?ref_=nm_knf_t1

• Head and Heart: Tom Feelings  (motion picture, 1977, directed and edited by James Mannas) https://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb14052128__SJimmie%20Mannas__Orightresult__U__X4?lang=eng&suite=def
• American Experience: Eyes on the Prize – Power! 1966-1968 (tv documentary series, 1990, James Mannas, special thanks credit)

     https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0894042/fullcredits

• American Experience: Eyes on the Prize II (Parts III & IV): Power! The Promised Land (tv documentary series, 2008, James Mannas, special thanks credit) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1347558/fullcredits