In Spike Lee's 1990 film Mo' Better Blues, protagonist Bleek Gilliam, played by Denzel Washington, engages in a poignant debate about the dwindling audience for traditional jazz among Black communities with "frenemy" Shadow Henderson, expertly portrayed by Wesley Snipes. Lamenting the lack of Black support for art created by "our own people," Bleek's inebriated enthusiasm is no match for Shadow's compelling assertion that Black artists must appeal to modern audiences' broader, more eclectic musical tastes. This iconic scene, known for the improvisational authenticity of its interlocutors, resonates with all of us who, like Bleek and Shadow, grapple with the challenge of creating and curating Black artistry in spaces where the benefactors and audience don't look like us.
Perhaps now more than ever, Bleek's sentiments about African American audiences' disengagement echo my anxieties about the future of Black art in cities like Milwaukee, which is experiencing a dearth of Black leadership across arts, culture, and creative sectors. As a curator and advocate within Milwaukee's artistic community for the past 25 years, I have seen firsthand the barriers that arise when there is a lack of representation and support.
In 2014, my college buddy Dr. Donte McFadden—currently the Director of the Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program at the University of Buffalo—pitched me on joining him to curate a film series for the Milwaukee Film Festival called Black Lens. Grounded in the classic phrase from Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come," the impetus for creating Black Lens was simple: create a platform to showcase films representing the Black experience and the filmmakers who made them, and Black people will come to the festival.
Proof positive that the plan could work, a year earlier, a festival screening of The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete, written by Milwaukee native Michael Starrbury and directed by John Marshall High School alum George Tillman Jr.—my alma mater—had filled the historic Oriental Theatre’s main auditorium, attracting a predominantly Black audience of over 1,000 people. The same was true for the 2014 Jimi Hendrix biopic Jimi: All Is by My Side, directed by another Milwaukee native, John Ridley, the Academy Award-winning writer of 12 Years a Slave.
Best-laid plans have a way of going awry.
In the first three years of curating Black Lens, we struggled to appeal to Black filmgoers as our film selections played for predominantly white audiences. Establishing the program as a premier cultural touchpoint in Milwaukee and throughout the state took nearly a decade. We got there, but it was tough.
Fast forward to 2024, and not much has changed in the arts and culture landscape in one of America's most segregated cities. I point to a social media post shared by my successor, assistant professor of film at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and former Black Lens programmer, Marquise Mays, who, on the final day of the 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival—his last with the organization—wrote that he was "sitting with the fact that the films I am curating still have a white audience majority filling the seats."
When I spoke with Marquise about his public exposition, a poignant commentary that included weighty issues such as prison abolition and the plights of the Congolese, Palestinian, and Sudanese people, I found that although he and I are separated by nearly twenty years, we shared the same concerns about the representation of distinctly Black cultural milieus in the visual arts, particularly cinema. In a city where the majority of the population is non-white, the boards and staff of major arts and culture organizations and the audiences they attract are predominantly non-BIPOC.
"If arts organizations don't have people who have a diversity of thought and experience, then they are just playing the guessing game," said Mays. "And they're honestly playing a guessing game and choosing the parts of blackness that appeal to their own interest."
This stark disconnect between the institutions and the communities they are funded to serve leads to the formation of imaginary social geographies: platforms and spaces that African American art inhabit serve the purposes of predominantly white purveyors, creating environments where Black bodies and cultural sensibilities feel out of place.
Among the few local film curators of color with a substantive platform to circulate knowledge about the Black experience through Black visual aesthetics, Marquise represents the thoughtful, grassroots intellectualism a thriving arts community cannot afford to lose. "I'm programming because I see people in real life, and a lot of these arts organizations don't deal with Black people in real life," Mays remarked, highlighting the need for more inclusive representation not just on the screen or stage but also behind the scenes.
An award-winning filmmaker, respected media scholar, and graduate of the University of Southern California's famed School of Cinematic Arts, Marquise is fully aware that his position as a Milwaukee Film programmer afforded him privileges few other creatives of color his age possess. “The city has made it very clear that they value my voice,” he acknowledged.
Three weeks after our conversation, he resigned from Milwaukee Film.
Similar to the departure of former Marcus Performing Arts Center president and CEO Kendra Whitlock Ingram to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust in 2022, Marquise's exit from Milwaukee Film is a setback to diversifying leadership in Milwaukee's arts and culture sector.
Yet, there remain reasons for optimism and models for success. Black Arts MKE, a Milwaukee nonprofit responsible for increasing the number of Black performers and access to African American cultural performances, has led the way in developing meaningful partnerships with African American-led art groups such as Milwaukee’s revered Ko-Thi Dance Company. Operated by a predominantly Black staff and overseen by a board of directors featuring prominent Black leaders in business, finance, and philanthropy, the organization boasts a three-week-long theatre festival and a one-day outdoor cultural festival in August.
A beacon of hope, groups such as Black Arts MKE, Walker's Point Center for the Arts, Milwaukee Artist Resource Network, and other like-minded organizations demonstrate the transformative impact of inclusive leadership in ensuring that communities of color have a voice in how these creative works reach and resonate with those whom it most mirrors. To foster a more inclusive and representative artistic community, Milwaukee's arts and culture institutions must prioritize inclusivity at levels beyond the creative, from C-Suite leadership and staffing to board assignments, to ensure that the voices behind these narratives sit at the decision-making table.
