BLACK IS STILL BEAUTIFUL

     Two of the oldest Black arts organizations came together to present, Naturally 2002, the show that taught Black women and the world that “Black is Beautiful” forty years ago. Billed as “The Original African Coiffure and Fashion Extravaganza Designed to Restore Our Racial Pride and Standards”, it inspired what became known as the “Black Consciousness Movement.” The show, which ran regularly from January 1962 until 1979, is the production of the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios, (AJASS), formed in 1956 in New York. This 40th anniversary show was co-presented by the National Conference of Artists (NCA), formed in 1959 by many of the nation’s leading visual artists and art educators at Atlanta University, including Margaret Burroughs, James D. Parks, Eugenia V. Dunn, Jewel W. Simon, Allan G. Junier, Virginia Kiah, Jack Jordan, and Bernard Goss.

AJASS and NCA have many things in common besides longevity. They were both founded by Black artists, they both champion the cause of the creative forces of our African heritage

including wearable art and the poetic genius of our people, and they both have as one of their principle producers, Kwame Brathwaite. Kwame, one of the founding members of AJASS, and their 1st Vice President and Chief of Public Relations, has been a member of the New York Chapter of NCA for more than a decade. He has been president of the local chapter for nine years and was recently elected NCA’s national president. Brathwaite will take office in April.

Naturally 2002 was held at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard @ 135th street. This special production featured this year’s version of the Grandassa Models, the symbol of black pride. AJASS and The Grandassas took on a world that didn’t even, for the most part, mention “Black” and “Beautiful” in the same sentence. A leading “Black” magazine which did a cover story on singer Joyce Bryant, one of the most beautiful of her day, referred to her as “a handsome colored woman”. The “Naturally” show, as it was called, performed mostly in New York, but toured Detroit, Chicago, Lincoln University, Cornell University and Babylon, Long Island, among others places. Their aggressive press material was printed worldwide, including in Africa. In Salisbury, the capital of then Southern Rhodesia, under colonialism, (today, Harare, Zimbabwe), young African progressives copied the show. According to African Parade Magazine of June 1963, “in Zimbabwe a club is organizing a show on June 2 on traditional way of dress and is putting on a display of African art and culture as it was in days gone by.” Featured on the cover was Grandassa Model Helene White a/k/a Nomsa Brath followed by two successive issues

Also honored were many who have since made their transition. The show paid homage to the spirit of Carlos Cooks, founder of the African Nationalist Pioneer