Black Is Beautiful 2023 – Margaret Sloan Hunter

Margaret Sloan Hunter was born in Chattanooga Tennessee in 1947. She grew up in Chicago and started a career in activism early. As a teenager she joined the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE). She co-founded a student group called The Junior Catholic Inter-Racial Council to get Black and White students her age to unite. She then joined the SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Council. She then gravitated towards spaces where women could construct their own organizations free from male domination even within movement circles. She was a driving for for the creation of Ms Magazine (1st national magazine on feminist viewpoints) in 1971 becoming one of the first editors. She spoke around the country and internationally, linking up w/ other Black women who identified as such and as feminists to found The National Black Feminist Organization. She moved to the Bay she helped to found the Berkeley Women’s Center and the Feminist School for Girls. She was a mother, a poet, singer, author, and a self proclaimed Black Lesbian Feminist. 

She spoke about coming out as being a Black Lesbian Feminist saying before she identified as a feminist or a lesbian she believed some of societies stereotypes, and the ignorant things people say. She wanted to put some of those preconceived notions to rest and when speaking about popular media that she felt starved for representation of women like her: ” I think the future is visual, I think we can read it, see it in our minds”. She died in Oakland California in 2004.

Sources: Black Women Radicals, Lesbians-The Invisible Minority, SF Gate, Feminist Majority, Wikipedia, BUST

Dig this? Check out these illustrations of the UK’s Olive Morris , Denise Oliver-Velez, and Claudia Jones

Some process shots: