Curated from the hearts & minds of Black women, Black Beauty Archive encompasses the history of our past, documents the present while imagining the future. Our mission is To archive and preserve the RICH legacy of Black Beauty Culture..

The Black Beauty Archive collection contains over 1400+ objects including full issue magazines, books, hair tools/hot tools, wigs, cosmetics, photographs, posters, oral histories, interviews, a/v tapes & more! A significant amount of our collection has been recovered, acquired, and donated from elders, artists, and collectors alike. All objects displayed are primary sources preserved within BBA collections, digitized for educational purposes only.

Languages: Collection material in English, Spanish & Hebrew.

Chronological Focus: 1941 to present. Materials prior to 1941 are collected in relation to their relevance to the Black Beauty Archive in preserving Black Beauty Culture.

Acquisition Information: Since the project was published on Juneteenth 2020 by our Founder & Lead Archivist Camille Lawrence, items have been added to the collection on a monthly basis and will continue to be added as they are identified. 

OUR ARCHIVAL PRACTICE

Developed Through Three Foundational PillarS

  • As African people, Oration is the primary mode of how we communicate and share information. Our team is in constant conversation learning, exploring and capturing oral histories within Black Beauty culture.

  • Black Beauty Archive acquires and preserves physical materials including beauty tools, cosmetics, advertisements, photographs, memorabilia, apparel and more.

  • Beauty practitioners across the African diaspora create, share, pass down ancestral knowledge through Black beauty ritual practices.

“The pieces (and only the pieces) are what begin the creative process for me. And the process by which the recollections of these pieces coalesce into a part (and knowing the difference between a piece and a part) is creation. Memory, then, no matter how small the piece remembered, demands my respect, my attention, and my trust.””

— Toni Morrison