Portraits In Power Fundraiser
James E. Wheeler Collection
Detroit Historical Museum
Oct. 11, 2025
Siblings Alima Wheeler-Trapp and Ali J. Wheeler hosted a fundraiser featuring their father’s art collection and a vibrant artist panel.
Alima Wheeler-Trapp and Ali J. Wheeler created the nonprofit organization Black Canon with the intention of preserving, educating and archiving through the use of their father, James E. Wheeler’s collection.
Wheeler passed down an archive of over 40,000 collectibles dating back to the 1920s. The collection, housed in a warehouse, features a wide range of Black memorabilia, including 16mm films, posters, magazines, photographs, and more.
On Saturday, Black Canon hosted Portraits in Power, a fundraising event at the Detroit Historical Museum. The event showcased select pieces from Wheeler’s vast collection, including four 16mm films featuring icons such as Muhammad Ali, Toni Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix. The evening also included a panel discussion with photographers Bre’Ann White, Sarah Fleming, Amanda Cain, and archivist Marcia Black, led by cultural preservationist, David Ellis, who reflected on their artistic journeys and the importance of preserving their work for future generations.
Ali Wheeler: “Black Canon started with our father, James E. Wheeler. He was a collector, actor, archivist, and he started collecting at a very young age. He collected anything to do with Blacks in the media, whether that be film, literature, music — anything to do with that. As he got older, the collection developed into an actual profession. In the 1980s, he started Concept East II because he was a member of the Concept East Theater Troop — he acted and directed there. At this time, his collection had become so massive he started putting on exhibits. He had some pretty big exhibits — one specifically at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But after he passed away, most of his stuff fell into storage units. So my sister and I are going through the process of archiving — determining what we have so we can use these materials to preserve them and educate.”
Alima Trapp: “My dad was inspired by one particular moment in his life — or at least that’s how he remembers it. When he was about 5 or 6 years old, still living in Arkansas, our grandparents owned a juke joint. Back then, all-Black cast films would travel through small towns, shown in makeshift movie theaters. Our grandparents’ juke joint became one of those spaces. He saw this movie called “The Blood of Jesus" and in that moment he knew he wanted to be a part of whatever that world was. That was the moment that he decided that he was going to start collecting.”
Sarah Fleming: “I've been feeling drawn to more photojournalist work and more archival work. Like using photography or even documentary work to document things in my family. Once this event came up and I learned about the nonprofit, it just so happened to coincide one-to-one with where I am in my journey as a photographer. It just feels like a beautiful way of keeping that work and that literal history of the city alive, especially in a city where so much has changed and so many new eyes, new people, and new perspectives are in this city. I feel like it's very important to reinforce and bring back a lot of the old historic things of the city.”
Marcia Black: “As an archivist, I think it's important to protect Black archives because I think it's critical to our survival that we know our history. I think our history helps to give us important reminders about what we're capable of doing. Having that understanding about what we've been able to navigate and what we've been able to overcome is necessary in order for us to feel brave enough to dream about a better world and to understand that we're not alone in this, that there's many gifts that our ancestors have left for us. I think a lot of those can be found in the stories that we preserve, the photos, the videos — the mementos that are left behind. It's important for us to preserve those things and also be active creators so that we are leaving things like that for future generations.”
Bre’Ann White: “I would describe my work as beautiful, but to me, the process behind it is even more beautiful. The stories of how each image comes to life are what matter most, like asking friends and family to help me set up a shoot, driving out to the sand dunes, and just having fun together. People might look back and see these beautiful images, but I want them to also feel the story behind them and to know that the journey to creating them was much easier than they might expect. A lot of people think the creative process has to be hard, but I’ve learned that it becomes easy once you just start.”
This article was published in conjunction with Outlier Media.
