The Creator Leslie Cunningham, Artist, Writer and Filmmaker
About the Artist:
Leslie Cunningham is an award-winning filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist, cultural historian, and founder of Harlem in Havana®, an award-winning cultural media and heritage brand dedicated to preserving overlooked stories from Black entertainment history.
Working across film, photography, exhibitions, live performance, writing, and digital media, Cunningham transforms forgotten archives into powerful experiences that connect history with the present. Her work explores memory, identity, resilience, and the extraordinary people whose contributions helped shape American culture but were too often left out of its historical record.
Her signature body of work, Harlem in Havana®, began as a deeply personal search into the life of her grandfather, legendary showman Leon Claxton, whose groundbreaking Black and Cuban traveling revue captivated audiences across North America for more than three decades during the Jim Crow era. That search has grown into an internationally recognized documentary, traveling exhibitions, live performances, books, educational initiatives, and public programs that are reclaiming one of the most remarkable untold stories in American entertainment.
As Founder and CEO of TRIBES, a boutique digital media company, Cunningham has spent more than two decades creating platforms that celebrate independent artists, preserve cultural heritage, and amplify voices that deserve greater recognition. Her work has been presented by museums, libraries, film festivals, universities, and cultural institutions, earning recognition for its unique blend of historical research, artistic storytelling, and public engagement.
Whether behind the camera, on stage, or in conversation with audiences, Cunningham believes that storytelling is an act of preservation—and that every recovered story has the power to reshape how we understand our shared history.
Artist Statement:
I didn’t set out to become an archivist. I set out to understand my family’s story.
That journey led me to thousands of photographs, forgotten performances, fading memories, and an extraordinary history that had somehow slipped through the cracks of America’s cultural memory. The deeper I searched, the more I realized I wasn’t simply documenting my grandfather’s life—I was helping recover the lives of hundreds of Black and Afro-Cuban performers whose artistry deserved to be remembered.
Everything I create begins with that belief: that art can restore what history has overlooked.
My work moves between documentary film, photography, exhibitions, live performance, writing, and education because no single medium can fully capture the richness of these stories. Each project becomes another doorway into the past, inviting audiences not only to learn history, but to experience it.
At the heart of my work is Harlem in Havana®, inspired by my grandfather, Leon Claxton, whose traveling Black and Cuban revue brought joy, opportunity, and extraordinary artistry to audiences across North America during segregation. Alongside him was my grandmother, Shirley Bates, one of the celebrated Brown Skin Showgirls whose grace and brilliance lit up the midway stage. Together, their story reminds us that performance can be an act of dignity, resilience, and cultural transformation.
I believe history is never truly lost until we stop looking for it. Every film, exhibition, photograph, performance, and essay I create is an invitation to look again—to see the people behind the photographs, hear the music behind the memories, and recognize the artists whose influence continues to shape our culture today.
If my work accomplishes anything, I hope it encourages people to see history not as something finished, but as something living—something we all have the power and responsibility to preserve, expand, and pass forward.
Learn about the Brown Skin Showgirls photography exhibitions
Harlem in Havana® 