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…
