Donyale Luna, the world's first Black supermodel, showcasing her signature look!

MICHAEL JACKSON performs "I Want You Back" on The Ed Sullivan Show in December 1969 (01/∞)

you didn't hear it from me, but jacob anderson created a new spotify playlist titled EUROPE and has been adding songs to it for the last month 👀

we already know that he uses music to get into Louis' mindset in his trailer during filming (he shared the LDPDL playlist a while back with this explanation) so one can only assume that things are brewing...

Consuelo Kanaga, She is a Tree of Life to Them, 1950,

Gelatin silver print,

Image: 13⅜ by 9⅝ in. (33.8 by 24.4 cm.)

Courtesy: Sotheby's

Thanks to @rstabbert for his post about Countee Cullen. Cullen was a poet who was a part of the African American cultural revival of the 1920s and 1930s called the Harlem Renaissance.

Cullen attended New York University and won an award for his book of poems "The Ballad of the Brown Girl". When he graduated from NYU in 1925, he was one of eleven students selected to Phi Beta Kappa.

He continued on to Harvard towards a Masters Degree and published “Color”, his book of poetry that “celebrated black beauty and deplored the effects of racism.”

Although Cullen was married twice, like other men of his era, he had to hide his true feelings about men. His friend Alain Locke introduced Cullen to the works of British poet Edward Carpenter who was an early advocate for Gay Rights. (Carpenter had maintain a same sex relationship for nearly 40 years.)

Cullen wrote about the impact Carpenter’s work had on him:

“It opened up for me soul windows which had been closed; it threw a noble and evident light on what I had begun to believe, because of what the world believes, ignoble and unnatural"

Of course some historians deny Cullen was homosexual, as is usually the case of straight society trying to deny Gay men exist.

For more about Cullen, read Rstabbert’s post.

To read about Edward Carpenter, check my post about him here:

'My biggest thrill up there had been to meet the last black Heavyweight Champion, Jack Johnson. I liked him. He never mentioned the problems he was having and never asked for any money or anything. He was an impressive looking guy and a good talker. He told me I was going to run into every situation possible, and he warned me to keep my head at all times'

- Joe Louis

Bern Nadette Stanis and Eddie Murphy

I swear Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger is such a under appreciated comic series!

👧🏾💜👩🏾

Excerpt from the PMT chapter of “The Making of Miami Vice

In late 1984 his agent, Kaye Porter, sent him the script for Miami Vice, then entitled Gold Coast. He loved the script but was rejected after his first audition. “I told my agent they were nuts. I said, “No one can do this but me.” Several weeks later he was called back to read with Johnson. The chemistry that flared between the two men is legendary. “We read and the magic was happening. It was like fire and air.” Through some curious combination of experience and timing, the roles seem perfectly tailored for just these two. Their camaraderie is part of what makes the show work on both an emotional and a visual level, and even now, and they move into position for another take on a scene from Sons and Lovers, the chemistry between them is unmistakable.

As Thomas has said, “We’re like two halves of a circle that came back to make a whole. We have an animal magnetism, a realistic quality that stems from the personal lives we’ve lived.” His coppery skin and smoldering green eyes distinguish his appearance. His looks once confused modeling agencies wanting to fit him into a particular racial category, but Philip refused to be categorized. “I’m American gumbo, part American black, part American Indian, part Irish and part German.” Tubbs and Crockett never mention race. They’re not avoiding it. It’s simply irrelevant. Michael Mann feels Thomas represents a new kind of black man on television. “He’s an extremely sophisticated, urbane black man who’s proud of and draws from black culture… without making it into his identity.”

When he talks about Tubbs, Thomas sees reflections of himself: “Tubbs is many things. He’s a gypsy, a serious dealer. There’s a secret, secret part of him I’m not interested in revealing to anyone yet. I want you to always expect the unexpected,” he remarked in a Genesis magazine interview. And part of the unexpected are the quirks that Thomas himself instills in the character. The Jamaican accent, for example, or the depth of emotion that comes across during Crockett’s soul wrenching confession in Evan. Or the the sensuality Thomas portrayed in the love scene with Phanie Napoli, who played Angelina in Calderone’s Demise.

The beautiful JESSICA WHITE

Linda Martell - "Color Him Father" (1970)

**Beyoncé's latest album 'Cowboy Carter' spotlights Linda Martell, a pioneer and trailblazer who paved the way for Black country music artists, as she was the first commercially successful Black female artist in the genre.

Phyllis Hyman

1979’s “You Know How To Love Me”

Dark skinned Sudanese African American beauty fashion jewelry model ❤️

"Elegance Personified: Celebrating the Timeless Beauty of a Dark-Skinned Sudanese African American Model Adorned with Fashion and Jewelry ❤️✨"

GAY ICONS MATT BAKER

Matt Baker is the best known African-American artist from the Golden Age of comics (1940s and early 1950s). He drew in the “good girl” art style, his curvaceous Phantom Lady is a great example. He worked with several comic publishers of the era, including Fox, Quality, and Charleton.

Baker also created the first black character that appeared regularly in Crown comics - Voodah, a Tarzan-like jungle hero. But during that era, many comic book wholesalers and retails refused to sell comics featuring Black characters on the cover. So to avoid the problem, Voodah was depicted as Caucasian of the covers but African on the inside pages.

Baker never married and his brother considered him a “Lady’s Man”. But Frank Giusto, one of his close friends, and artist Lee J. Ames (a fellow artist) have said in interviews that Baker was gay.

Baker was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.

Usher | King of R&B 🤴