Department of Visual & Performing Arts
Grambling State University
Grambling, Louisiana
Title
From Ordinary to Niche: The Evolution of 1970s Black America’s Clothing and Hairstyles to Reflect a New Identity
Synopsis
This paper examines the reasons why, after centuries of constancy in American assimilation, Black America disaffiliated in the 1970s by creating a niche look in their clothing and hairstyles. The result was so distinctive as to demarcate and differentiate Black America from all other demographics and has continued in various iterations to the current day. The research reveals a long history of a circular pattern of affliction of painstaking social lows and disappointments, followed by short-lived political highs which are soon engulfed by the evolution of new painful social low points and disappointment as Americans. Using historical records, political gains and losses, and Black presence on American television during the 1970s, a justification of and rationale for the reasons which led Black America to establish their own identity via clothing and hairstyles is postulated.