Thursday, 11 February 2010 08:00
We have to recognize each other’s cultures, so we understand what pisses each other off.
—Whoopi GoldbergBack in 1974, Beverly Johnson was the first black model to appear on the cover of American Vogue. Now, as she remembers that moment, her smile suggests a mix of emotions. “At the time,” she says, “I was angry.” That is, she says, though she was celebrated for being the “first,” and proud of it, she remains frustrated that her achievement is touted as such. “I was a model,” she insists, not only or even principally an African American model. And still, here she is, in The Black List: Volume Three, going over again what it meant and means to be that first black model on Vogue‘s cover.
Johnson’s interview is typical of this latest installment in The Black List Project, an ongoing series of photographs and interviews assembled by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell. That is, she situates herself in black American history, not only in reference to her achievements as an adult, but also thinking about her childhood, and the ways her family’s experiences affected hers.
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