Roots to Reckoning
1 October 2005 to 26 February 2006
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Powerful and intimate, reflections of the forces that have shaped the lives of London’s black communities since the war are portrayed in the photographic exhibition at Museum of London.
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Over 100 images in Roots to Reckoning showcase the lives and times of three pioneering Jamaican-born British photographers, Neil Kenlock (b. 1950), Armet Francis (b. 1945) and Charlie Phillips (b. 1944).
With subjects ranging from iconic figures like Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali, Black Panther marches, street protests, and the early Carnival to beauty, fashion, and portraits taken in Africa and Jamaica, the photographs capture the events and attitudes of the times and trace the journey of the three photographers as search for their own identities as black and African Londoners rather than the children of West Indian immigrants.
The exhibition is based around the dramatic and sometimes unusual life stories of the three photographers, coming to London as lone children, rejoining parents who they scarcely knew. All three were living in London by the 60s, and witnessed over four decades of tremendous change.