Black History Month Every Month
The following post was written by our new Program Director Namasha Schelling.
“While history is what happened, it is also, just as important, how we think about what happened and what we unearth and choose to remember about what happened.”
― Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story
February is Black History Month and every year it leaves me wondering: why aren’t we celebrating Black History every month? Wouldn’t we reach our goals of equality and equity in America much faster, if we finally made a real effort to incorporate Black History into our everyday curriculum, dialogue, traditions, myths, and culture? Why aren’t Black Americans considered to be a part of the original founders, creators, and builders of this country?
When I was taught American History in school, teachers often loved to talk about “manifest destiny” and the “great American spirit,” which pushed people to hack their way through unknown lands for a better life out West, nevermind that this land was already known and lived on by Indigenous Americans. But this “great American spirit,” this drive for freedom, and a better life was never really associated with Black Americans. I never heard those usually white teachers talk about Black History in that way, as a fabric of this country. It was always depicted as separate. Black Americans are the ultimate survivors, the ultimate portrayal of this “great American spirit,” brought here, not by choice but through slavery, and yet have contributed immensely to what it means to be American. There is no American History without Black Americans.
In school I read Hemingway, Twain, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Lee, Salinger, maybe Morrison and Angelou, but not Baldwin or Ellison. I thought that might have been a factor of my age. I graduated high school in 2002, so surely this had changed by now, but a young person who graduated in 2017 from a high school in New York confirmed that they only found out who James Baldwin was a few months ago, way after they graduated. So even now, in 2023, we are still dealing with an education system whereby everyone knows who Hemingway is, and yet Baldwin is often unknown by many. Is this really the best that we can do in American schools?
The fashion world is not immune from this erasure of Black Americans. Most people have heard of Coco Chanel, even though she was a known Nazi sympathizer. Yet, most people have not heard of Ann Lowe, a Black designer who designed Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress when she married John F. Kennedy. Even though people were going crazy for the dress, when Jackie Kennedy was asked who designed the dress, she responded, "a colored dressmaker did it." We revere Jackie Kennedy when taught American History and leave out significant details like this that paint her in a very different light. Lowe remained relatively obscure even though she also designed icon Olivia de Havilland's gown for the 1947 Oscars.
In the Fashion industry, there is a lack of diversity in management positions, less access to sponsorship for Black talent, and less likelihood for Black candidates to be promoted to managerial roles. According to The State of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Fashion Report, published in February 2021, white men comprise 54% of C-suite roles and 72% of board seats, despite being only 26% of entry-level positions. While people of color comprise 16% of C-suite roles and 15% of board seats, despite comprising 32% of entry level positions. In addition, only 11% of Black employees found jobs in fashion through their networks, versus 26% of all other respondents.
Creatives Want Change (CWC) is an equity-based platform dedicated to nurturing the next generation of Black designers and thought leaders in the Fashion Industry. We are a creative incubator that provides young Black talent with access to education, mentoring and professional development beginning at the high school level, effectively creating a pipeline for students into the fashion industry.
CWC is defined by its five foundational pillars. Since 2021, we have provided 25 Black students full scholarships to Pre-College Summer Programs in Fashion Design annually (first pillar), covering tuition, fees, room & board, travel, and all supplies, in order to give these students early access to college-level education that can set the course for their academic success and in turn their careers. Upon completion of their summer programming, students are provided with Mentorships (second pillar), matching them with industry leaders as they work on the portfolios created in their summer programming, further preparing them for college and the workforce. Upon entering college, CWC then matches students with Internships and Apprenticeships (third pillar), allowing the students to apply the skills acquired through coursework in the real working world. Throughout, students are provided access to community events that afford them greater interaction with the industry (fourth pillar). In the long term, our growth as an organization will allow us to provide College Scholarships (fifth pillar), thereby assuring that the high cost of undergraduate education isn’t a barrier to entering the field. The combination of these five pillars gives the students skills and resources as well as a network of allies who become their supporters and champions, opening up an industry in which Black talent is historically underrepresented.
At CWC we celebrate Black History every single day! We believe in educating everyone on Black creatives that have existed in the past and in creating a vibrant future for Black creatives, through an educational pipeline. Applications are now open for our summer 2023 pre-college scholarship program and those students will be given opportunities for mentorships, internships, and hopefully very soon full-ride scholarships and apprenticeship opportunities.
Application details: https://www.creativeswantchange.org/application-2
Link to application: https://form.typeform.com/to/xo9LGm5T?typeform-source=www.creativeswantchange.org
