FASHION AS AN IDENTITY MARKER: AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY AND IDENTITY POLITICS 1950S-70S

Abstract

The 1950s civil rights movement in the United States brings to mind iconic events and figures such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Martin Luther King, Jr. In the uneven pace of change that followed, such as legislative reform and racial violence, the black community continued to agitate for greater equality and increasingly radical groups emerged including the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party. The emergence of different movements over the course of the 1960s and 1970s reflects a heightened sense of group consciousness and empowerment among African Americans. This thesis examines the changing consciousness and awareness of black identity through fashion, primarily the clothing styles and hairstyles. Fashion was an everyday tool used by ordinary people as well as leaders and activists to communicate solidarity and symbolise a form of nonverbal resistance against white oppression. At the same time, it was an expression of black pride. The exploration and articulation of black identity became an integral rhetoric of the Black Power movement. The visible representation of ‘blackness’ served as a daily reminder of the efforts being exerted on the part of the black community for greater political, economic, and cultural legitimacy in the United States.