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THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2017

DAY 17 — Pat Cleveland

Pat Cleveland - International Cover Girl

“Patricia, we have very few colored girls in our agency. The only reason I took you is because Oleg Cassini recommended you. But I really think you will never make it in the modeling business. You see, you don’t look like an American. Your face is not pretty. Your nose is strange.”

Pat Cleveland was 18 in the late 60s when she sat in the Ford Models Manhattan headquarters, listening to the company’s founder tell her that her beauty, her allies & her goals didn’t matter because she was black.

But she kind of already knew that. Pat’s career started at 14 with the Ebony Fashion Fair Tour, a traveling showcase of black models in high fashion. In northern states & abroad, the tour drew middle- and upper-class black audiences in droves. In the South, they attracted an entirely different crowd. In Arkansas, the KKK threw Molotov cocktails at their bus & one of the girls was nearly raped. Even using a restroom and going for a walk turned violent against them.

But working with black agencies had been limiting too, because for the black culture of the time, darker skin was in. (Although she did appear in Essence Magazine repeatedly.) She was too light-skinned to be successful on one hand, and too dark-skinned on another. Since the problem was with American society, not Pat’s skin, she solved it the only way she knew how & left for Paris, home to many black creatives seeking opportunities they weren’t afforded in America.

Her success was almost immediate. She graced runways for designers like Yves Saint Laurent, KENZO, KARL LAGERFELD, Halston, and Valentino; posed for Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali & illustrator Antonio Lopez; and appeared in high-end fashion magazines regularly. And once she was in demand, she leveraged that success & refused to return to the U.S. until a black model had appeared on the cover of American Vogue. (Ms. Beverly Johnson became their first in 1984.)

Before pioneering black models like Iman, Naomi Sims, and Beverly Johnson, there was Pat Cleveland, and as early as 1980, she was recognized as the world’s first black supermodel, strange nose and all.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Vogue Paris created a reel of Pat’s runway walks as a Chloé model from 1978-1986, looking completely fabulous in her own skin.

Listen in or read through NPR’s interview about the tradition of black American migration to Paris since the 19th Century.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2017

DAY 5 — Marsha P. Johnson

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(Ed. Note: Since this post was published, accounts of Marsha’s participation in the riot have shifted to reveal that she arrived after the violence had already begun. This revelation does not diminish Marsha’s contributions to the culture.)

In solidarity with #Stonewall this weekend, I want to introduce y’all to Miss Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson.

Marsha was a transgender activist who founded Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to help prevent homelessness and violence against gay & trans people in New York, but is best known as the Queen Who Threw The Shot Glass Heard Around the World.

When the bar at the Stonewall Inn was raided on June 28, 1969, Marsha was the first of the patrons to defend other clubgoers against the police – some of whom were sexually assaulting patrons, all of whom were misusing a law about selling liquor in dance halls to publicly humiliate, harass and institutionalize LGBTQ people. When the police’s lineups began, Marsha interrupted by throwing a shot glass into a mirror and launching the Stonewall Riot. Even though her crew of street queens were some of the most outcast in the community, they stood up for everyone present at Stonewall that night.

Marsha wasn’t done though. She became an active and visible member of the Gay Liberation Front that allied & “welcome[d] any gay person, regardless of sex, race, age or social behavior” to enable the culture together to resist & rise together. What happened at Stonewall with just a moment of resistance from Marsha P. Johnson, gained momentum and became the spark for the modern-day fight for LGBTQIA rights as we know them today.

Marsha was also one of Andy Warhol’s muses – appearing many times in his 1975 series “Ladies and Gentlemen” both in paintings and in Polaroids, but in 1992, her body was suspiciously found in New York’s Hudson River, and no criminal investigation was conducted. Although Marsha’s life was snuffed out unceremoniously, it left incredible impact on the LGBTQIA community, many of whom still lovingly refer to her (much as her charges at STAR did) as the True Drag Mother.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

While not totally historically accurate in its depiction, Drunk History featured a wildly hilarious take on the night Marsha launched the Shot Glass Heard Around the World.