GBN’s Daily Drop: Donyale Luna – the First Black Supermodel (LISTEN)

[Photo: Woodgate/Associated Newspapers/Rex USA]

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop Podcast is based on the Friday, February 18 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about Donyale Luna, who emerged in the 1960s as the first Black supermodel:

You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, February 18th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Beverly Johnson made waves in 1974 as the first African American model to appear on the cover of American Vogue, and almost 50 years later she is still at it, having just walked in two shows at this year’s New York Fashion Week.

But did you know that the first African American model to grace any Vogue cover ever did so eight years before Beverly? In 1966, Donyale Luna graced the March cover of British Vogue. A Detroit native, Luna is widely considered to be the world’s first Black supermodel and served as one of the inspirations for the 1975 Diana Ross film Mahogany.

Luna’s career was unfortunately short-lived as she passed in 1979 at the age of 32, but her legacy lives on. To learn more about Luna and to see photos from her modeling days, check out the links provided in today’s show notes and also in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

Source links:

• http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,840625-1,00.html
• https://www.thecut.com/2013/07/first-black-supermodel-whom-history-forgot.html
• https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/donyale-luna-model-vogue
• http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9658276/The-tragic-tale-of-Donyale-Luna.html
• https://www.bygonely.com/donyale-luna-fashion-model/

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.