Black Is Beautiful

Posing Beauty: African American Images From The 1890s To The Present – Deborah Willis – 247 pages – W.W. Norton & Company – £35

“Beauty is a power. And the struggle to have the entire range of Black beauty recognised and respected is a serious one.” This is the opening quote to the ambitious book detailing the first photographic history of black beauty. Award-winning author Deborah Willis collected over 200 photographs to provide a visual statement as well as critique how it was ignored and racialised by mainstream media.

Deborah Willis attempts to portray a full historical range, from the famous to the ordinary, individuals and a community. She focuses on three themes: constructing a pose, body & images and modelling beauty & beauty contests, and is keen to emphasise how African Americans re-imaged themselves in order to speak out against the dominant culture (adverts, billboards, magazines and beauty pageants that were white only) as well as show that there is no single mode of beauty.

Willis looks as far back as the 1890s to look at how African-Americans were using photography to counter the negative imagery of black people – with dignified and elegant portraits of businesswomen, families out in their Sunday best or social clubs posing in group shots to define a middle-class respectability.

There is a strong touch of glamour in shots of Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Gordon Parks. However, beauty was also politics, particularly in images from the black power era, while ‘blaxploitation’ movie stills portrayed a hyper sexual femininity. There are also vivid social statements, such as that of a black girl and a white girl applying make-up next to each other during the civil rights movement.

The book itself is beauty, with its luscious images and layout. It celebrates a wide range, which has changed over time and hopes to transform how we view it. It is also an important narrative on the exclusion of a specific type (or types) of beauty in mainstream visual culture and the modelling industry.