Ain't I a Beauty Queen? Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race

by Craig, Maxine Leeds

• ISBN13: 9780195142679
• ISBN10: 0195142675
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-06-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

"Black is Beautiful!" The words were the exuberant rallying cry of a generation of black women who threw away their straightening combs and adopted a proud new style they called the Afro. The Afro, as worn most famously by Angela Davis, became a veritable icon of the Sixties. Although the new beauty standards seemed to arise overnight, they actually had deep roots within black communities. Tracing her story to 1891, when a black newspaper launched a contest to find the most beautiful woman of the race, Maxine Leeds Craig documents how black women have negotiated theintersection of race, class, politics, and personal appearance in their lives. Craig takes the reader from beauty parlors in the 1940s to late night political meetings in the 1960s to demonstrate the powerful influence of social movements on the experience of daily life. With sources ranging fromoral histories of Civil Rights and Black Power Movement activists and men and women who stood on the sidelines to black popular magazines and the black movement press, Ain't I a Beauty Queen? will fascinate those interested in beauty culture, gender, class, and the dynamics of race and socialmovements.

Author Biography

Maxine Leeds Craig is Assistant Professor of Sociology and director of the graduate program in Sociology at California State University, Hayward.

Table of Contents

Ridicule and Celebration: Black Women as Symbols in the Rearticulation of Race	3	(20)
Contexts for the Emergence of ``Black Is Beautiful,''	23	(22)
Ain't I a Beauty Queen? Representing the Ideal Black Woman	45	(20)
Standing (in Heels) for My People	65	(13)
How Black Became Popular: Social Movements and Racial Rearticulation	78	(31)
Yvonne's Wig: Gender and the Racialized Body	109	(20)
Pride and Shame: Black Women as Symbols of the ``Middle Class,''	129	(14)
The Appearance of Unity	143	(18)
An Ongoing Dialogue	161	(10)
Notes	171	(16)
Selected Bibliography	187	(8)
Index	195