Explore Black History

June 7, 2020

Photographer Tommy Oliver is an award-winning producer and cinematographer in television and film. Best known for his 2020 documentary 40 Years a Prisoner on HBO, his docuseries Black Love (2017–2020) on OWN, and his feature film The Perfect Guy (2015), Oliver challenges audiences to question their assumptions about race, gender, and family. The film Kinyarwanda (2011), which Oliver co-produced, weaves together narratives of resilience during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. It won the Sundance Film Festival’s award for World Cinema Drama and was recognized as one of the top 10 films of 2011. This photograph is part of a broader portfolio of images taken during Black Lives Matter rallies in Los Angeles between May 31 and June 14, 2020.

A digital, color image of YG participating in a Black Lives Matter protest in Hollywood, California. The image was taken by Tommy Oliver during the protests that followed the death of George Floyd. YG, pictured center, is in the middle of a tightly packed crowd of protesters. He is holding a large sign with a color photograph of Nipsey Hussle above his head with his proper left hand. YG is depicted from the waist up, facing the viewer, and smiling. He is wearing a black, baseball-style cap worn backwards and a white, short sleeve T-shirt. Printed on the front of his T-shirt is an illustrated color graphic of a KKK Klansman hanging from a tree. Partially obscured black outlined red and yellow text around the illustration reads [K[LU?] [K?]LUX KOPS], [[HA?]NG YO[SELFsic]] and [KILL US? [---?] Y[OU?]]. The large photograph of Hussle depicts him in bust pose with his face turned on profile, towards his proper left shoulder. He is wearing a white puma jacket and has several gold chain necklaces around his neck. Also visible in the photograph, are his checkered flag tattoos on his neck, the facial tattoo over his proper right eyebrow that reads [PROLIFIC], and a smaller one by his eye that reads [GOD / WILL RISE]. His hair is divided into wide sections and plaited into cornrows. Many of the protesters surrounding YG are wearing face masks, or other types of protective face coverings, and some are carrying raised protest signs. In the distant background is a white, neoclassical building on the left and a large leafy tree on the right.

Photograph of YG with a picture Nipsey Hussle at a BLM protest in Los Angeles

National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection

Photographs and Still Images

Black Lives Matter

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Tommy and Codie Oliver

National Museum of African American History and Culture

2021.31.60

digital images
digital media - born digital

© Tommy Oliver
Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.

digital

H x W: 4480 pixels × 6720 pixels
File size: 172.31 MB

Title • Untitled

nmaahc_2021.31.60

NMAAHC

UNTITLED

National Museum of African American History and Culture

CC0

2020s

Hussle, Nipsey • Floyd, George Perry • Oliver, Tommy • YG

Hollywood • United States • Los Angeles County • North and Central America • Los Angeles • California

Justice • Photography • Resistance • Hip-hop (Music) • Activism • Police brutality • Rappers (Musicians) • Black Lives Matter • Urban life • U.S. History, 2001- • Race relations

Locale • Hollywood • City • Los Angeles • County • Los Angeles County • State • California • Country • United States • Continent • North and Central America

digital media - born digital • Photographs

Images

Limited Use