Entry · catalog no. 1325
Black is beautiful
/ /blæk ɪz ˈbjuːtɪfəl/ /BLAK iz BYOO-tih-ful
phrase · Harlem, New York City; nationwide by the late 1960s · 1960s
✓ Verified
1.
A declaration that Black skin, hair and features are beautiful as they are, made against a beauty standard that treated them as defects to be straightened, lightened or hidden.
“She went natural in 1966 and caught hell for it at work. Black is beautiful was not a compliment then, it was a position.”
2.
By extension, the whole cultural turn it named — naturals, African dress and names, and Black pride as public style.
“The Afro on that album cover is a Black-is-beautiful statement, not a hairstyle choice.”
Origin & Attribution
Carried into the world by the African Jazz-Art Society and Studios, a Harlem collective founded by the photographer Kwame Brathwaite and his brother Elombe Brath, and by the Grandassa Models they organized in 1962. On 28 January 1962 AJASS staged "Naturally '62: The Original African Coiffure and Fashion Extravaganza Designed to Restore Our Racial Pride and Standards" in the basement of the Purple Manor in Harlem, using Black women wearing unstraightened hair as the argument. Brathwaite's photographs carried it out of Harlem and through the decade. The thinking behind it is Garveyite, and the sentiment is older than the slogan; the 1962 shows are where it became a movement with a face.
1962
AJASS stages Naturally '62 at the Purple Manor in Harlem, 28 January; the Grandassa Models are formed
1968
The phrase is everywhere in the Black Power years, alongside James Brown's Say It Loud
2019
Aperture publishes Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful, restoring the credit
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Harlem, New York City; nationwide by the late 1960s · 1960s
Spoken by
Black artists, models, students and organizers; everyday Black speech through the late 1960s and 1970s
$BLACKIThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady64 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
70/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1962
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful, Aperture, New York
photography monograph · 2019
■
+ Cite a sourceAJASS, Naturally '62: The Original African Coiffure and Fashion Extravaganza, Purple Manor, Harlem, 28 January 1962
event · 1962
See also