Join J. Cecilia Cárdenas-Navia PhD Candidate, for History of Science and Medicine at Yale University for a lecture on Skin Technologies and Epidermal Transformation in the Melanin Era.
As the long civil rights movement gained momentum with Black Power and the Black Arts Movement, blackness, and its association with darkly pigmented skin, became beautiful, iconic, and even trendy. Three threads exemplified and complicated this emergent epidermal spirit: enterprise, sociological “passing” experiments, and the shape-shifting strategies of Michael Jackson. Entrepreneurial endeavors have long been an active facet of Black communities, although at times featuring controversial aspects of aesthetic alteration; Madame C.J. Walker, a Harlem beautician, became one of the first black millionaires in part due to her successful promotion of hair straightening and skin lightening products. The advent of Black Power and its emphasis on embracing “natural” beauty without chemical alteration of skin, hair, or bodies challenged this paradigm and insulated blacks in America from the encroachment and harsh health effects of skin bleaching creams and other technologies.
$8 tickets at the door.
Sep 16, 2026 3:00 pm
