Leo Antony “Tony” Gleaton (1948-2015) was an African American photographer, scholar, and artist best known for his portraits capturing and documenting the African influence in the American West and Central and South America. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Gleaton grew up in a working-class African American family and later moved to Los Angeles, where the cultural vibrancy of the 1960s profoundly influenced his artistic vision. His identity as a Black man in the United States, coupled with his deep commitment to social justice, became the bedrock of his artistic endeavors.

After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, Gleaton began his formal education in filmmaking at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). However, he soon transitioned to photography, finding in it a powerful medium to explore issues of race, identity, and the African diaspora. Dissatisfied with the limited representations of Blackness in American art and media, Gleaton sought to expand his artistic horizons. In 1980, he left New York and hitchhiked around the American West, a journey that further fueled his desire to explore the diversity of the African diaspora.

Gleaton's most transformative work began in the mid-1980s when he embarked on a series of photographic journeys across Latin America. His project, Tengo Casi 500 Años: Africa’s Legacy in Mexico, Central and South America, which started in 1986, became a landmark series documenting Afro-Mexican, Afro-Central American, and Afro-South American communities. This body of work was not just about capturing images but also about challenging dominant narratives. 

Through his lens, Gleaton challenged the myth of Latin American mestizaje, or homogenous racial mixture, emphasizing the often-overlooked contributions of Afro-descendant communities to the cultural fabric of the Americas. His work underscored the complexity of identity in the region, urging viewers to reconsider colonial narratives of racial and cultural assimilation. His work in Central America was particularly groundbreaking because it challenged these pervasive narratives that had long cast a shadow over Black Central American communities. He spent years living among Afro-descendant communities in Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador, where he produced some of his most striking work.

Characterized by their stark, high-contrast black-and-white aesthetic, Gleaton's photographs captured everyday moments of work, play, and ritual among Afro-descendant communities. This intimacy was a hallmark of his style, as he sought to convey not just the external realities of his subjects but also their inner lives and emotions.

Indeed, Gleaton’s contribution lies not only in the visual documentation of these communities but also in his ability to capture the subtle, everyday expressions of identity and belonging. His photographs serve as a powerful counter-narrative to the erasure and marginalization of Afro-descendant communities in Latin America and the Caribbean, providing a visual archive that is both intimate and profound.