AP® African American Studies review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/african-american-studies/units/4/4-12)
Unit 4 · Topic 4.12
4.12 Black Is Beautiful and Afrocentricity
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Black Is Beautiful movement and Afrocentricity encouraged African Americans to take pride in Black beauty and African heritage and to reject the idea that they should conform to white standards. They changed hairstyles, fashion, names and holidays, and helped shape African American Studies and ethnic studies.
Key terms
- Black Is Beautiful
- natural hair
- Kwanzaa
- Afrocentricity
- Molefi Kete Asante
- Sankofa
Black Is Beautiful
The Black Is Beautiful movement grew in the 1960s. It rejected the idea that Black people were inferior or should conform to mainstream, white standards of beauty, and it celebrated Black features, well-being and connections to Africa.
The movement showed up in everyday life:
- Natural hairstyles, like the afro and cornrows, instead of chemically straightened hair.
- African-inspired fashion, like dashikis (loose, colorful shirts) and head wraps.
- African and Islamic names, chosen in place of names inherited from slavery.
- Kwanzaa, a holiday created in 1966 to celebrate African heritage and community values.
- Akan adinkra symbols from Ghana, like the Sankofa bird, which looks backward and stands for learning from the past.
The required sources
In a short 1968 video clip, Kathleen Cleaver, a leader in the Black Panther Party (4.11) and later a legal scholar, explains why she wears her hair natural and encourages Black people to be comfortable with their own natural beauty.
The African Jazz-Art Society and Studios (AJASS), a group of artists and jazz musicians inspired by Marcus Garvey (3.18), held yearly 'Naturally' fashion shows celebrating Black beauty. They featured the Grandassa Models, Black women who wore natural hair and African-inspired fashion. The required 1968 photo comes from a 'Naturally '68' photo shoot at Harlem's Apollo Theater, with Grandassa models and AJASS members in dashikis.
Maya Angelou's poem 'Still I Rise' (1978) answers those who have tried to put the speaker down with confidence, humor and pride, insisting that she will rise anyway. It expresses the self-respect and resilience at the heart of the movement.
Afrocentricity
Afrocentricity, a term the scholar Molefi Kete Asante developed in the 1970s and 1980s, is an approach that puts Africa, and what African peoples have achieved, at the center of the story. It highlights Black experiences, perspectives and aesthetics instead of viewing them through a European lens. It grew alongside the movements of the 1960s to create African American Studies and to celebrate pride in African heritage.
Influence and debate
The Black Is Beautiful movement's rejection of cultural assimilation, the pressure to give up your own culture to fit in with the majority, laid a foundation for multicultural and ethnic studies programs for other groups. Afrocentricity shaped African American Studies departments, including the first PhD program in the field, at Temple University in 1988.
Afrocentricity has critics, and the course expects you to know their arguments. Some scholars say that by treating 'Africa' as one culture, it blurs real differences among the many African peoples and diaspora communities. Others argue that it can simply replace Eurocentrism, one group at the center of history, with another, rather than challenging the idea of a single center. Supporters respond that centering Africa corrects centuries of distortion.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Presenting a debate fairly
Describe one argument in support of Afrocentricity and one criticism of it.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Supporting argument: it centers African experiences and corrects Eurocentric history.
- Step 2: Criticism: it can blur differences among African and diaspora cultures, or replace one center with another.
- Step 3: Keep both in neutral, accurate terms.
Answer: Model answer: Supporters argue that Afrocentricity corrects centuries of Eurocentric scholarship by putting Africa and African peoples at the center of history and valuing their perspectives. Critics argue that it can blur the real differences among the many African and diaspora cultures, and that it may replace Eurocentrism with another single center instead of challenging that way of thinking.
Common mistakes
- Thinking Black Is Beautiful was only about appearance. It was about rejecting the idea of Black inferiority.
- Presenting Afrocentricity without its critics, or the critics without its purpose. Know both sides.
- Mixing up dates: Black Is Beautiful in the 1960s; Afrocentricity named in the 1970s.
On the exam
- Photos and videos about natural hair and fashion may appear. Explain what they show about pride and resistance to assimilation.
- Link this topic to the Black Arts movement (4.10) and to naming debates going back to 2.10.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
5 questions on 4.12 Black Is Beautiful and Afrocentricity. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
In a 1968 television interview, Kathleen Cleaver, a leader in the Black Panther Party, explained that she wore her hair naturally because for years Black women had been told their natural hair was ugly. The same year, the photographer Kwame Brathwaite photographed the Grandassa Models, Black women with natural hair wearing African-inspired clothing, at the "Naturally '68" show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
Summary written for this practice set of a 1968 interview with Kathleen Cleaver and of Kwame Brathwaite's photographs of the Naturally '68 show
Both sources best illustrate which goal of the Black is Beautiful movement?
Which other practice was part of the same cultural movement?
The Black is Beautiful movement's rejection of cultural assimilation later helped lay the groundwork for
Scholar A: Afrocentricity corrects a history that has treated Europe as the center of human achievement. Placing Africa and African people's perspectives at the center lets students of African descent see themselves as actors in history rather than as objects of it.
Scholar B: Afrocentricity can flatten the huge differences among African societies and among people across the diaspora into one shared identity. And by making Africa the center in place of Europe, it may mirror Eurocentrism instead of moving beyond it.
Passages written for this practice set, summarizing scholarly views of Afrocentricity
Scholar A's main claim is that Afrocentricity
Scholar B's critique rests mainly on the concern that Afrocentricity
0 of 5 answered