MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: What Black Supermodels Owe To The Civil Rights Leader.

MALCOLM X On Black Beauty And His Hatred Of The Scottish Roots That Gave Him Red Hair.

Black hair and beauty were not central tenets within the manifesto of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, but they became the movements physical symbols of freedom. By Ben Arogundade.

What Effect Did Civil Rights Leaders Martin Luther King
Jr, And Malcolm X Have On Black Hair And Beauty?

THE FOCUS OF THE AMERICAN Civil Rights Movement was not directly intended to encompass hair and beauty — but in fact the adoption of European aesthetic values amongst black women was viewed by civil rights militants as an exercise in self-hatred, which needed to be broken if African Americans were truly to be free. “We have been a people who hated our African characteristics,” said Malcolm X in his 1965 speech, Why Africa Is Not Free. “We hated our heads, we hated the shape of our noses, we hated the color of our skin, hated the blood of Africa that was in our veins....And we hated ourselves.”

Malcolm X, who straightened his hair as a teenager, only to later renounce his choices, was the era's most outspoken advocate of black aesthetic revisionism. But the idea that adopting African beauty values equated with political consciousness was crude, as was the further suggestion that a black woman who chose straight her hair somehow could not be a true activist.

Perhaps the eras most important influence on black beauty values took place in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr on April 4, 1968. In an unforeseen development, the tragic news galvanised a wave of guilt from white liberals within the fashion industry, which resulted in black models, who had previously been excluded from mainstream modelling, being brought into the fold.

More stories about African American hair and beauty during the civil rights era can be found in Ben Arogundade best-selling book Black Beauty.

VOICES FOR CHANGE: Dr Martin Luther King (Right), and Malcolm X address supporters during the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

The DNA Of Martin Luther King Jr's Son Traces The Family Ancestry To West Africa And Northern Europe

HAIR, BEAUTY AND ETHNICITY ACCORDING TO MLK AND MALCOLM X

_1,000,000

The number of people worldwide who Google
Martin Luther King Jr's name each month.

_550,000

The number of people worldwide who Google Malcolm X's name each month.

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