Garrett Augustus Morgan Sr. was an American inventor, businessman, and community leader. His most notable inventions were a type of three-way traffic light, and a protective 'smoke hood' notably used in a 1916 tunnel construction disaster rescue. Morgan also discovered and developed a chemical hair-processing and straightening solution. He created a successful company called "G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company" based on his hair product inventions along with a complete line of haircare products and became involved in the civic and political advancement of African Americans, especially in and around Cleveland, Ohio.
The afro is a hair style created by combing out natural growth of afro-textured hair, or specifically styled with chemical curling products by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair. The hairstyle can be created by combing the hair away from the scalp, dispersing a distinctive curl pattern, and forming the hair into a rounded shape, much like a cloud or puff ball.
Tracee Joy Silberstein, known professionally as Tracee Ellis Ross, is an American actress. She is known for her lead roles in the television series Girlfriends (2000–2008) and Black-ish (2014–2022) receiving nominations for five Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the latter.
John Harold Johnson was an American businessman and publisher. Johnson was the founder in 1942 of the Johnson Publishing Company, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Johnson's company, with its Ebony (1945) and Jet (1951) magazines, was among the most influential African-American business in media in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1982, Johnson became the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400. In 1987, Johnson was named Black Enterprise Entrepreneur of the year. in 1996, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Neutrogena Corporation, trading as Neutrogena, is an American company that produces cosmetics, skin care and hair care and owned by parent company Kenvue and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. According to product advertising at their website, Neutrogena products are distributed in more than 70 countries.
Oscar Brown Jr. was an American singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, civil rights activist, and actor. Aside from his career, Brown ran unsuccessfully for office in both the Illinois state legislature and the U.S. Congress. Brown wrote many songs, 12 albums, and more than a dozen musical plays.
Jet is an American weekly digital magazine focusing on news, culture, and entertainment related to the African-American community. Founded in November 1951 by John H. Johnson of the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, Illinois, the magazine was billed as "The Weekly Negro News Magazine". Jet chronicled the civil rights movement from its earliest years, including the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the activities of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Johnson Publishing Company, Inc. (JPC) was an American publishing company founded in November 1942 by African-American businessman John H. Johnson. It was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. JPC was privately held and run by Johnson until his death in 2005. His publications "forever changed the popular representation of African Americans." The writing portrayed African Americans as they saw themselves and its photojournalism made history. Led by its flagship publication, Ebony, Johnson Publishing was at one time the largest African-American-owned publishing firm in the United States. JPC also published Jet, a weekly news magazine, from November 1951 until June 2014, when it became digital only. In the 1980s, the company branched into film and television.
Black is beautiful is a cultural movement that was started in the United States in the 1960s by African Americans. It later spread beyond the United States, most prominently in the writings of the Black Consciousness Movement of Steve Biko in South Africa. Black is beautiful got its roots from the Négritude movement of the 1930s. Negritude argued for the importance of a Pan-African racial identity among people of African descent worldwide.
S. B. Fuller was an American entrepreneur. He was founder and president of the Fuller Products Company, publisher of the New York Age and Pittsburgh Courier, head of the South Side Chicago NAACP, president of the National Negro Business League, and a prominent black Republican.
The history of cosmetics spans at least 7,000 years and is present in almost every society on earth. Cosmetic body art is argued to have been the earliest form of a ritual in human culture. The evidence for this comes in the form of utilised red mineral pigments including crayons associated with the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa. Cosmetics are mentioned in the Old Testament—2 Kings 9:30 where Jezebel painted her eyelids—approximately 840 BC—and the book of Esther describes various beauty treatments as well.
Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone was an American businesswoman, inventor and philanthropist. In the first three decades of the 20th century, she founded and developed a large and prominent commercial and educational enterprise centered on cosmetics for African-American women.
Kinky hair, also known as afro-textured hair, is a human hair texture prevalent in the indigenous populations of many regions with hot climates, mainly sub-Saharan Africa, Melanesia, and Australia. Each strand of this hair type grows in a tiny, angle-like helix shape. The overall effect is such that, contrasted with straight hair, wavy hair, or curly hair, kinky hair appears denser.
Wendell Phillips Academy High School is a public 4-year high school located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in September 1904, Phillips is part of the Chicago Public Schools district and is managed by the Academy for Urban School Leadership. Phillips is named for the American abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Phillips is known as the first predominantly African-American high school in the City of Chicago. Phillips' building was designated a Chicago Landmark on May 7, 2003.
Paula Beth Begoun, also known as "The Cosmetics Cop", is an American talk radio host, author, and businesswoman. She is the founder of Paula's Choice and Beginning Press Publishing.
Johnson Products Company (JPC) is a privately held American business based in Chicago, Illinois. It is best known for manufacturing a line of hair care and cosmetic products for African American consumers under the names Afro Sheen and Ultra Sheen. The company was a longtime sponsor of the syndicated US television dance show Soul Train until that program's cancellation.
The natural hair movement is a movement which aims to encourage people of African descent to embrace their natural, afro-textured hair; especially in the workplace. It originated in the United States during the 1960s, and resurged in popularity in the 2000s.
In the US, Black-owned businesses, also known as African American businesses, originated in the days of slavery before 1865. Emancipation and civil rights permitted businessmen to operate inside the American legal structure starting in the Reconstruction Era (1863–77) and afterwards. By the 1890s, thousands of small business operations had opened in urban areas. The most rapid growth came in the early 20th century, as the increasingly rigid Jim Crow system of segregation moved urban Blacks into a community large enough to support a business establishment. The National Negro Business League—which Booker T. Washington, college president, promoted—opened over 600 chapters. It reached every city with a significant Black population.
Vincent T. Cullers was an American designer, advertising professional, and civil rights activist. Inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States, he founded Vince Cullers Advertising in 1956. He was a pioneer in advertising targeting the Black American population.
