Lift Every Voice and Sing, Pt. 3: Samantha and Kelly!
And finally, your Sunday installment of Black joy courtesy of Samantha Powell and Kelly Davis Daroe!
Samantha Powell’s Fashionable & Philosophical Musings
The Fashion Month centering on the Spring/Summer 2020 collections occurred in the early fall of last year, a time that now, three months into isolation, feels like millennia ago. And in what might end up being one of the final New York Fashion Weeks to take place in the format with which the industry has become accustomed, Kerby Jean-Raymond demonstrated what a runway show could be and could do and what they are so often not. The unveiling of his Pyer Moss collection was held at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn, and both the show and the clothing were a celebration and a reminder of the many ways in which Black people have shaped (and, let’s be honest, created) American music.
400 years have passed and all that time they been telling us they didn’t bring us here to sing and shout and hoot and yell. They brought us here to work. Well we’ve come here tonight to say we ain’t gonna grieve no more. We ain’t never gonna be slaves in body or in mind no more.
Casey Gerald, author of There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir, opened the proceedings with a story that verged on a sermon and while there was pain there in his words what bloomed at the end was joy. You can feel the joy everywhere. In Jean-Raymond and his staff bopping along to the music while backstage. In the members of the audience singing along or placing a hand over their hearts when they hear the opening notes of a favorite song. And, of course, in the looks worn by the models.
“We got our story now. We tell our story now.”
Kelly Davis on Christa David, August Wilson, and Black Style
On Christa David’s Art — Black joy is bittersweet. It’s laughing with friends at my socially distant birthday party and the sudden hush that follows the announcement that another Black person has been murdered by police. It’s waiting for the call that your grandma has been put on a ventilator because COVID-19 is ripping through Black churches and nursing homes. It’s celebrating every small thing you can, while, in the back of your mind, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
For me, nothing captures this feeling like Christa David’s art. David’s art is a like Billie Holiday song. Within lies pain for sure, but it’s totally eclipsed by the beauty. My favorite collage (now an art print) “Note to Self: Joy is Primary” says it all. Her striking collages depict the richness of Black American life by juxtaposing black and white portraiture with vivid and fluid colors and shapes that transport me to both the future and the past at once. That sentence, which I have been trying to write for 30 minutes, is utterly inadequate. Just click the link. Then do yourself a favor. Buy it. Buy it all.
On August Wilson — August Wilson is my spiritual grandfather. I fell in love with him when I was a teen in a D.C. theater watching Viola Davis as Tonya in King Hedley II—my favorite play of all time. His Century Cycle gives a snapshot of what Black family meant in every decade of the 20th century. Although white America is flocking to buy books about the facts of structural racism, I hold little hope that folks will mobilize to affirm the humanity of Black people. My proof? No one is engaging with the hearts and souls of Black folks, shown in the works of August Wilson and Lynn Nottage and Rita Dove and Lucille Clifton and more—nowhere to be found on any best seller list. Even among his peers, Wilson is special; he never belabored forced narratives about race. His plays are about Black people, not Blackness. Naturally, our relationships, jobs, housing and health are restricted by Blackness’s prescriptive social positioning, but our lives are not defined by it. That’s what Black joy is all about.
On Black Style (and Small Business) — Black people are the arbiters of American culture and style. Pass by any Black neighborhood on Easter Sunday or the first day of school and you will be convinced. Argue with your mama. My life is filled with Black people dedicated to showing Black joy in motion through fashion. Samantha Powell, whom I have deeply loved for nearly twenty years, explores the motivations and choices of Black costume designers. My best friend Missale Priest owns a small business, Margeaux Priestly, that makes turbans, face masks and headbands. My sister Kristi Davis, a total bad ass with a degree from the Savannah College of Art in Design, is attempting the scale the lily white ivory tower of fashion design. And my cousin Sam Robinson tries every day to maximize a fashion journalism degree in a collapsing media landscape. Their struggles in marketing, supply chains, and capital are a direct result of fashion’s propensity to emulate Black style while eschewing Black people, but they never falter. Their convictions about the importance of Black aesthetics (and there are many) help me when I feel too downtrodden to get out of bed. They change me from the outside in. They help me realize that I don’t have to look like what I have been through.
One more reminder: you can still win a copy of Jasmine Guillory’s Party of Two!
A pair of sisters as iconic as Alexa (lead of The Wedding Date) and her big sister Olivia (whose love story we finally get in Party of Two)
Party of Two follows ace lawyer Olivia Monroe as she very tentatively falls in love with someone she’d never imagined herself with: Max Powell, a hot shot junior Senator. If this sounds to you as delightful as it does to me (and Roxane Gay), just pop your email into our Handy Dandy Google Form by the end of the day this coming Thursday and could win a copy just in time to have the perfect the 4th of July weekend reading.
Two Bossy Dames is brought to you by:
And the cast of The Color Purple at the 2016 Tony Awards: