A’Lelia Walker: The Joy Goddess of Harlem’s 1920s

In 1938, Jacob Lawrence, one of the most prominent modern artists of the 20th century and a seminal figure of the Harlem Renaissance, completed a 41-panel series based on the life of General Toussaint L’Ouverture, a statesman and military genius descended from West African royalty.

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Our founder and creative director, Theodore McFail, was credited and featured in a 2023 short film by F.E. Castleberry, the former creative director for Ralph Lauren’s Rugby label.

Lawrence Otis Graham’s 1999 U.S. bestseller book, Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class, provides a sympathetic insider account of the habits, clubs, and lifestyles of America’s wealthiest Black families.

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Over a century after her death, Madam C.J. Walker remains an iconic figure in American history. Born in 1867 to emancipated slaves, she rose to become the United States’ first self-made female millionaire by 1910, building a cosmetics and hair care brand and founding a national network of beauty schools.

What’s particularly intriguing about the preppie aesthetic is that despite how it’s often commodified and marketed, the true origins of the Look are frequently obscured or omitted from the public consciousness.

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Archibald John Motley Jr., a Jazz Age modernist considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, visually chronicled the diverse and nuanced Black experience in the early decades of the 20th century.

Gilda George Tennis Club has compiled a collection of four letters dating from 1925 to 1948 between Du Bois and the oldest and most storied American clothing brand. The letters document the delivery of suits and Benson & Hedges gold-tipped cigarettes.

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The first professional African American athletes were jockeys, who dominated the sport of horse racing from the late 19th to the early 20th century.

In 1946, Alfred Eisenstaedt, legendary German photojournalist who rose to fame by capturing some of the world's best-known images, was commissioned by LIFE magazine to document daily campus life at the prestigious Historically Black College and University (HBCU), Howard University.

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