Keep Your Head to The Sky by Hakim Mutlaq Inniss

Keep Your Head to The Sky, 2021, Archival Digital Print , 11 x 14 inches

Alvin Ailey Dancers faced the possibilities and were able to complete a number of performances but the 21 fall Season was cut short by some positive test results. Photo was shot in New York.

Hakim Mutlaq Inniss was born in Trinidad and Tobago and migrated to the Bronx, NY in the late 60’s. His interest in photography began while looking thru books and magazines like Life, Ebony and National Geographic.  This tuned him into photography as a way of seeing and documenting the world around him.  His further immersion into the visual world came when he found a community darkroom that was available at Manhattan’s City College, where he was majoring in Biology, and he was hooked. He then moved into the photojournalistic world thru what was to be  a twenty plus  years collaboration with CLASS and Black Diaspora Magazine that started in 1980.  Before he knew it he was off on one of his all-time favorite assignments e.g. The funeral of The Hon. Robert Nesta Marley OM.  Shortly thereafter he began his association with The AP and various other outlets as an independent. His work has been used by numerous magazines and newspapers including Essence Magazine, The NY Times, The NY Amsterdam News, The NY City Sun, NY Post and many others.  He has been exhibited   at The Schomburg Center: ‘Who’s Uptown Harlem 1987”,   “Transitions” @ Pace University, at the first major 21st century exhibit  of Black photographers in the NYC Tri-State area “Harlem Views Diasporan Visions” also at the Schomburg Center.  Other exhibits include   “Resilience of the African Spirit” @ the Dwyer Center for Culture , and” Art and Protest” @ The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Center.  His work was also used in Oprah Winfrey’s Oscar’s tribute to Sidney Poitier.