Harry Belafonte visiting The Supremes, Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson, backstage at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles in August 1965. Photo: Bettman/Corbis
Richard Pryor and Phylicia Rashad pay a visit to Debbie Allen in her dressing room on Broadway on April 27, 1986, after Debbie opened in the return of Sweet Charity. Photo by Ezio.
50 SHADES OF BLACK
(from black coffee to high yellow)
African American Sex Symbols & the Complexity of Skin ToneMy latest art piece is fashioned in the style of a book cover. Its title (most certainly) and its subject matter (very loosely) are the result of a creative play on the very popular contemporary novel Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James.
Now that the art/cover is created, it’s time to write the book. This is where you come into play. While this subject could very easily lead to a book written by a sole individual, I am interested in a conversation…in a dialogue. I’d like for that dialogue…those contributions from you to be the basis of the manuscript.
Share with me your responses to this piece. It may be in the form of quick comments, reflections, essays, personal stories, anecdotes, memories of things you heard your mama say about Billy Dee Williams, etc. Over time, I’ll organize, synthesize, group, copy and paste these comments into a document with the goal of ultimately producing a FREE downloadable e-book of your contributions to the topic. It’s a book written on the Internet by Internet users. Just like any other piece of art, it’s open for interpretation.
Who knows how this will go? I don’t. I don’t even know if it has ever been done before. But I am very curious what you have to say…and something tells me other people are too.
Let’s talk.
50 SHADES OF BLACK
(from black coffee to high yellow)
African American Sex Symbols & the Complexity of Skin Tone
Conceived and Designed by Carlton Mackey – Written by You
Feel Free to leave comments below
Or
Email extended comments to:
carltonmackey@carltonmackey.com
carlton.mackey@facebook.com
Pioneering model Helen Williams, hands down, the most photographed Black model of the 1950s and 1960s, in a 1960s Kodak advertisement.
© Charles “Teenie” Harris, 1930s-1940s, One Shot Teenie
#1: Two young women eating caramel apples, 1940-1945
#2: A woman outside Kay’s Valet Shoppe, 1938-1945
#3: Boys (possibly from Herron Hill School) playing brass instruments, 1938-1945
#4: A woman poses with a car on Mulford Street in Homewood, 1937In the days of film, especially in a controlled setting, photographers often made redundant shots to make sure they captured what they wanted. Not Charles “Teenie” Harris. A native of Pittsburgh’s Hill District, the city’s cultural center of African-American life, Harris was a semi-pro athlete and a numbers runner before he bought his first camera in the 1930s. He opened a photography studio and specialized in glamour portraits, earning the nickname “One Shot” because he rarely made his subjects sit for a second take. (read more)
Nearly 80 years later, a retrospective of the photographer’s work, “Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story” is on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh until April 7, 2012.
Happy Birthday, Lorraine Hansberry!
(May 19, 1930– January 12, 1965) Lorraine Vivian Hansberry the 3rd was an African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays. Her best known work, A Raisin in the Sun, was inspired by her family’s battle against racial segregation in Chicago.
Josephine Baker and her husband, bandleader Jo Bouillon with some of their adopted children in France, 1964.
Blaxploitation movie posters……a film genre from the 1970s that targeted urban African American audiences. Starring Pam Grier.
Roxie Roker and her son Lenny Kravitz. Lenny shared this photo on his Facebook fan page last year.
Be careful with each other so you can be dangerous together.
A young Dorothy Dandridge with a group of beauty queens in the 1940s. Photo: Clyde Woods.
(Source: sunshinerepublic)
Janet Collins — the first Black ballerina to perform at the Met.
Billie Holiday
