Beverly Johnson paved the way for supermodels Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks, after becoming the first Black woman to grace the cover of Vogue in 1974. But it wasn’t a walk in the park.
She recalled experiencing racism in the fashion industry in the 1970s. “What you have to realize is that I was the only Black girl on every shoot. Once in the 1970s, we were at a five-star hotel. I got into the pool. And all of a sudden, the editor came out and made everybody get out. They drained the pool. Twenty years later, one of the models told me it was because of me. But I had blocked it out. In order to survive, I would make myself not react. Like Teflon.”
Johnson recalled being racially profiled at 11 or 12 years old by white kids in her hometown, Buffalo, NY. “The first time I ever experienced racism, I was 12 or 13. We were riding our bikes in a white neighborhood and all the kids started throwing pop bottles at us. I heard them call us the N-word. That was the first time I really heard it. It really chipped away a little piece of my heart, but it also made me more determined.”
Beverly Johnson is hoping change will come out of the ongoing protests. “Disruption is uncomfortable, but it means there’s an opening. A crack in the door. And it’s all about trying to make a better world for our kids and our grandkids. Change is possible, and I’m trying to make a difference in my own way. I feel I am standing on the shoulders of my ancestors. The #MeToo movement was Herculean — if we could only do that with race. Because that needle, it really moved.”