Marvin Elliott Ellis, a native Miamian and graduate of Xavier University, is a photographer and visual documentarian of the South Florida African diaspora communities. His photo collections and papers are archived at The Black Archives, History and Research Foundation of South Florida in Miami; The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans; and The Xavier University of Louisiana Archives. The primary focuses of the collections are the African American and Haitian American communities of Miami and South Florida, and Black Roman Catholics and Black Episcopalians. His photography has been featured in the 2008-2009 Miami-Dade County African-American History Calendar, and by The Amistad Research Center. Three decades ago, Ellis began researching his African-American and Antillean Creole genealogy and family history. As a result of Ellis’s intense interest in the pursuit of finding and identifying his ancestors and relatives, he developed and chaired the first Miami Book Fair International panel discussion focused primarily on genealogy and family history of descendants of Africans in the Western hemisphere.
