Black-owned athleisure brand, Actively Black, turned its New York Fashion Week show into a living history lesson as Civil Rights icons walked the runway.
The Lanny Smith-founded brand is known to uplift and reinvest in the Black community with its work, including a $500,000 donation back in 2023, according to Forbes. The tag line for Actively Black is #ThereIsGreatnessInOurDNA and after a two-year hiatus from NYFW, the brand returned to remind us of our living history.
Dr. Bernice King and Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz, the daughter of civil rights icons Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were featured models on the catwalk wearing hoodies with their fathers’ faces. Bernice, the youngest child of Dr. King and Coretta Scott, captioned images on X, “walk together…and not get weary.”
Smith, posted images of Dr. Bernice and Dr. Shabazz during the show, writing “I’ve cried 3 times since last night. Thank you for trusting me with this vision.
As a reminder that the Civil Rights Movement was not that long ago, living icons also walked the runway.
Cecil J. Williams, the photographer who documented many key events of the Civil Rights Movement, including school desegregation, protests, and the Orangeburg Massacre. He was famously pictured as a teenager drinking from a “whites only” fountain. He wore a sweatshirt with a colorized version of the photo on it, a collaboration between himself and Actively Black.
Additionally, others who walked the “This Is Not a Fashion Show” event include: Tommie Smith & John Carlos the track-and-field athletes known for raising their fists during the U.S. national anthem on the podium at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Ruby Bridges the six-year-old girl who, in 1960, became the first African American student to desegregate William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. Ben “Boston Ben” Haith well known for designing the Juneteenth flag and for his ongoing work raising awareness about racial justice and community empowerment.
“I decided to bring Mr. Cecil himself out to New York Fashion Week to walk in our show and let the folks know he is real and he AINT NEVER SCARED!” Smith wrote on a caption. “People think the heinous and evil of Jim Crow was ancient times. Nah, people are STILL here who grew up in it.
