black girl magic
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Upholding the Dream: MLK’s Granddaughter Continues Her Family’s Legacy
Yolanda Renee King, the grandchild of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, made a surprise appearance Saturday at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C. The 9-year-old roused the crowd with a passionate speech that would no doubt have made her activist grandparents proud, evoking the “I Have a Dream” speech…
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The Children Are Our Future: 11-Year-Old Naomi Wadler Asks Us to #SayHerName
I am here today to represent Courtlin Arrington. I am here today to represent Hadiya Pendleton. I am here today to represent Taiyania Thompson, who at just 16 was shot dead at her home in Washington, D.C. I am here to acknowledge and represent the African-American girls whose stories don’t make the front page of…
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#SisterhoodSaturday: Yes, Chloe x Halle, The Kids Are Alright
It’s #SisterhoodSaturday here at The Glow Up, so it’s only natural to feature one of our favorite sister-acts, Chloe x Halle (aka Chloe and Halle Bailey), whose premier album, The Kids Are Alright, debuted Friday. Frankly, it seems like just yesterday that we were watching these two as preteens, performing lushly harmonic YouTube covers of…
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Chanté to Shanté: Chanté Adams Channels Hip-Hop Pioneer Roxanne Shanté in Netflix’s Roxanne, Roxanne
Chanté Adams is living a dream—one she envisioned not too long ago as a 2016 graduate of the School of Drama at the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Less than two years later, the young actress is enjoying the premiere of her first film, starring as female rap prodigy and pioneer Roxanne Shanté in…
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She Got Game: Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Rookie Ebonee Davis Plays by Her Own Rules
For 25-year-old model Ebonee Davis, her breakout moment was a 2016 TED Talk titled “Black Girl Magic in the Fashion Industry.” This was not your typical advice on beauty or how to get into modeling but, rather, a scathing indictment of the fashion business and its soul-crushing standards of beauty with regard to black women.…
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The Breakthrough: Vanity Fair Breathes New Life with Lena Waithe on the Cover
If you’re a follower of Hollywood, politics and society—or a journalist who covers all three—you’re likely familiar with Vanity Fair. Though first published from 1913 to 1936, the magazine as we know it today has been in print since 1983 and until recently was under the editorial direction of Graydon Carter, who took the helm…
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All Hail the Homegirl Intervention: Brittney Cooper Praises the Power of Black Female Friendships in Eloquent Rage
Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part interview about Brittney Cooper’s book Eloquent Rage. Most of my best friendships have started with good conversations—I’d hazard a guess that most of yours have, too. So when I found myself in a genuinely good conversation with author and feminist scholar Brittney Cooper about her incredible…
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A Recipe for Black Girl Magic: Nikia Phoenix Invites You to Brunch
Nikia Phoenix is the model, influencer and world traveler whose fresh, freckled face and cornrows enchanted us in the 23andMe commercial. You know the one: where she motorcycles and dune-buggies around the world, emerging from the waters in each new destination as if reborn in the newly found recognition of her DNA. True to the…
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Eloquent Rage: Brittney Cooper Knows the Beauty of the ‘Angry Black Woman’
Author, intellectual and educator Brittney Cooper is a Black Feminist; capital “B,” capital “F.” It’s a distinction so important it’s the title of a chapter in her latest book, a groundbreaking work titled Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, out now on St. Martin’s Press. Of course, some know Cooper better as a…
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Not A Wrinkle in Time: Ava DuVernay Proves That #BlackGirlMagic Is Eternal
So here we were, minding our business on an otherwise tepid Tuesday, skimming the Twitter, when we stumbled upon the most adorable—and strangely recognizable—little face on the Toronto International Film Festival’s feed. It was a baby Ava DuVernay, giving #BlackGirlMagic in braids and barrettes, and reminding us that every great person was once just a…