Last spring I was working on a school project that was partly inspired by 1950’s fashion. While doing research I came across these amazing black women in entertainment that I had never heard of before. Women who were being their awesome bad ass selves at a time when racism was the norm. One of those women is Joyce Bryant. My jaw dropped when I first saw images of her. From the fantastic Zelda Wynn Valdes gowns she was often wearing to her distinctive silver hair, she just oozes confidence and glamour. I could look at these images of her endlessly!
This project made me rethink about how I do research for my projects and which sources I use. I only came across Bryant after I refocused my research and started digging deeper. I got tired of coming across the same images over and over again when looking into 1950’s fashion. Images of the same white women I feel I’ve been seeing since vocational school a long time ago. For a moment I got sad and angry about it but then I figured it’s better to try and do something about it. For me, that means educating myself and being more critical when doing research but also spreading the word about awesome women like Joyce Bryant.
Copyright of images Carl Van Vechten’s Trust
