I remember the first time I saw the phrase “Black is Beautiful.” It appeared in black letters on a pink bag from the beauty supply store. There it lay on the floor of my mom’s closet—the words calling out to me with a positive affirmation about the color of my skin.
I repeated the phrase several times in my head, committing it to memory. I knew I would one day use it against the boy who had made it his mission to tell me how unattractive I was.
The boy who was teasing me was Black, but his skin was a few shades lighter than mine. He and his friends wanted to make me feel as if my complexion were inferior to his. It’s hard to remember when it started or how it ended, but when I saw “Black is Beautiful” written on that bag, I knew I had the words I needed to strike back at those boys.
For days I held onto them as if cradling a weapon, poised to come to my own defense. One day, the boys renewed their attack during a class rehearsal. I remember their faces as they laughed about how Black I was. As soon as I could, I hurled those words I’d been saving back at them. The ringleader paused for a beat, and then responded: “Not that Black.”
At that moment, I felt like I hadn’t just lost a battle—I’d lost the war. But in hindsight, that interaction also marked a turning point for the way I looked at myself, and at people with darker skin than mine. It marked the beginning of a new way of understanding who I was.
I grew up painfully shy, but by the time I got to college, I had broken out of my shell. I rebelled against the message of those boys, and made it my mission to compliment any person with skin the color of coffee beans. I marveled at the beauty inherent to a rich, deep-brown complexion. In the summer, I fell in love with the way the sun kissed my skin, making it darker as the days grew longer. Instead of hating the appearance of my skin, I celebrated it. And I celebrated others whom I knew had had the same words hurled at them.
Over time, I continued to hold that phrase, “Black is Beautiful,” in my head, but my grip on it loosened. Whenever I heard those words spoken—which didn’t happen often—they hovered as a brief reminder of my strength during that long-ago rehearsal.
When I was younger, I didn’t know why another Black person would use hurtful words to describe your skin tone, given that it’s something you have no more control over than the nose you were born with. But as I got older, I better understood the reason behind this behavior. It was colorism.
“Colorism” was defined by writer Alice Walker as the “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color,” in her essay collection, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. In the United States, colorism began as a seed of discrimination planted during slavery, and has since grown to create division within the Black community.
To justify slavery, whites created a narrative that Blacks were inferior and not fully human, therefore a life of cruel and degrading bondage was more a gift than a punishment. From this false ideology grew many stereotypes based on the inhumanity of Black people.
Enslavers showed favoritism towards the children born out of their violent and abusive sexual encounters with Black women. While they would not claim the children as their own, they would give their offspring, who had lighter skin, preferential treatment, allowing them to take on housework instead of working in the fields. Enslaved people with darker skin typically weren’t given those same opportunities, and the fallacy that lighter skin was superior came into existence.
After slavery, Black people with darker skin had a difficult time finding work. In some instances, skin tone was mentioned on job applications as a skill due to the assumption that lighter skin was superior and more desirable to white people. It became synonymous with intelligence and beauty, which opened doors and allowed those particular Black families to reach a higher social status. The division between darker- and lighter-skinned Blacks grew.
Growing up, terms like “house negro” and “field negro” stood in as substitutes for the color of our skin. We talked about “paper bag tests” and debated who would pass them and who wouldn’t. I remember hearing boys say, “She’s cute for a dark-skinned girl,” implying that lighter skin automatically made you more beautiful.
Once, I dated a dark-skinned man who told me he wanted to be with a woman with lighter skin because he didn’t want his kids to inherit his skin tone. I remember wondering if my deep brown skin was light enough for him.
In the documentary film Dark Girls, Black women, including Academy Award-winning actress Viola Davis, share their struggles with self-esteem and the ridicule and prejudices they’ve faced from having darker skin. There’s an additional mental and emotional toll darker-skinned Black women encounter because of their complexion. One woman shared how she grew up fantasizing about having lighter skin, and another woman asked her mother to add bleach to her bathwater to lighten her skin.
The effects of colorism are extensive and damaging for people with darker skin. Black people continue to earn less than white people, and many studies have shown that those with darker skin earn still less than their lighter-skinned peers. Along with higher wages, lighter-skinned Blacks also have better mental and physical health. Black women with lighter skin serve shorter prison sentences than their darker counterparts. And young girls with dark skin are three times more likely to be suspended from school. Overall, darker-skinned Blacks experience microaggressions and discrimination at a higher rate than Blacks with lighter skin, furthering the misconception that lighter skin is worthier.
The Black is Beautiful cultural movement started in the 1960s as a backlash against these discriminatory standards, and as a way to dispel the notion that the typical physical characteristics of Black people were ugly. The ideology of white supremacy is damaging to all people of color, taking a toll on their mental health and leading to higher incidences of illness and violence in their communities. The Black is Beautiful movement attacked that ideology, and tried to dismantle the internalized racism many Black people were experiencing.
The phrase gained momentum following a fashion show in Harlem put on by Kwame Brathwaite and his brother Elombe Brath in 1962. The show featured the Grandassa Models, a group of dark-skinned Black women with a range of body shapes donning clothes inspired by Lagos, Accra, and Nairobi, and shamelessly rocking afros. The show was a statement against Western physical ideals, and encouraged Black women to embrace their beauty at a time when wearing natural hair in public was considered unacceptable, and when ultra-skinny models like Twiggy were idolized.
The rise of the Black is Beautiful movement encouraged Black people to stop straightening their hair and lightening their skin. It sought to undo the beauty standards established by white supremacy and strengthen the emotional and psychological well-being of Black people, and Black women in particular. It also led to a Black art revolution, inspiring artists to create works celebrating Black culture and their connections to Africa. During this time, Black actors and actresses demanded roles outside of the stereotypical servants, and films and TV shows started depicting Black characters in more realistic ways.
The Black is Beautiful movement sparked a demand for representation, respect, and pride that hadn’t existed before. It gave Black people the permission to love themselves despite the mainstream messages that made many feel ashamed of being Black. Instead of referring to themselves as “negro,” the word “Black” became the preference. And songs like James Brown’s “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” became a rallying cry for the community.
Last year, the phrase “Black is Beautiful” made a significant reappearance in my life, years after I found that bag in my mother’s closet. In June 2020, outcries about racial injustice and police brutality became mainstream. Protests erupted throughout the country, fueled by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others.
In response, Marcus Baskerville, co-founder of Weathered Souls Brewing Company in San Antonio, Texas, announced the Black Is Beautiful initiative on June 1. The brewery’s release featured a can design that commanded attention, and which was adorned with various shades of brown interlocked like puzzle pieces, the words “Black Is Beautiful” front and center in big, bold letters.
While the original Black is Beautiful movement was a call to action for Black people to love themselves without conforming to white beauty standards, Baskerville’s initiative is “about understanding and supporting people of color and inclusion.” Instead of placing the onus for change on those impacted by white supremacy, it’s calling on white people to be part of dismantling the systems that oppress Black people and others in the BIPOC community.
Baskerville is asking participating breweries to donate 100% of the proceeds from their Black Is Beautiful beer releases to local organizations that support police brutality reform and legal defenses for those who have been wrongly convicted. Still, unlike other collaborative initiatives, like Other Half’s All Together and Sierra Nevada’s Resilience, this one is less about raising money and more focused on bringing attention to the systemic injustices faced by Black and Brown people, both in and outside of the beer world. The initiative asks that breweries go beyond brewing the beer, but truly commit to long-term work for equality in their communities.
Whenever I see a Black Is Beautiful can or bottle, my thoughts go to so many places—that time in my mom’s closet, or to the boy who teased me, or to any of the other moments when colorism has impacted my life. Sometimes I wonder what that boy’s life is like now, and if he even remembers his bullying. Other times, I think about the people behind the beer. When the initiative was first announced, I wasn’t sure what type of reception it would receive from breweries. To see so many beer businesses sign on was shocking and exciting at first.
Later, I wondered—are their intentions genuine? Or are they capitalizing on our oppression, and using the initiative as a checkbox to say, “See, I’m not racist!” without truly doing the work to be anti-racist? It wasn’t long before my excitement for the initiative waned. While it’s thrilling to see the Black is Beautiful movement take on a different shape and evolve from its 1960s origins, it’s also disheartening to know that some people still view this initiative as a one-step “cure-all” for racism.
As with many things that have crossed over from the Black community into mainstream America, the history of “Black is Beautiful” has been left behind. Without it, the message loses part of its meaning, part of its strength. But even if a white person knows the story of the movement, they will never truly understand the weight of that phrase—how much it meant to me as a young girl who was told being Black made her ugly. How I had to fight against centuries of hate to reclaim my self-esteem, before I was even an adult.
Only time will tell whether the 1,000+ breweries who’ve signed on to brew a Black Is Beautiful beer will adopt a lasting anti-racist approach, will donate funds as promised, and will truly commit to supporting Black people. Both the original Black is Beautiful movement and this new initiative aim to accomplish one thing—making life better for Black people, whether that’s through pride in oneself or via a call for support from the beer industry. But support doesn’t—can’t—stop at brewing a Black Is Beautiful beer or writing a check.
I challenge everyone in this industry we call a community to do their own research on colorism—explore its history and you’ll begin to understand more about the deep-seated racism that exists in this country, and the destruction it continues to cause. And know that the phrase “Black is Beautiful” serves as a reminder in a time of pain that, despite the deep-seated racism of this country, there is always beauty in being Black—and though we might vary in complexion, we can be united in our Blackness.
Words, Stephanie GrantIllustrations, Colette Holston
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