For more than 60 years JET magazine’s “Beauty of The Week” page has served as a weekly snapshot promoting and supporting the message that black is beautiful.
In 2014, Hank Willis Thomas curated all Jet Beauty of the Week photos for an exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem entitled “Black is Beautiful 1953-2014”
Since 1952, Jet has had a full-page feature called “Beauty of the Week”. This feature includes a photograph of an African-American woman in a swimsuit (either one-piece or two-piece, but never nude), along with her name, place of residence, profession, hobbies, and interests.
Many of the women are not professional models and submit their photographs for the magazine’s consideration. The purpose of the feature is to promote the beauty of African-American women.
While it fought against internalized racist ideas of beauty, the magazine was unavoidably affected by that very racism in its early years. Many of the earlier models were very fair skinned. However during the 70s, as black pride swept African American communities across the nation, the women noticeably began to reflect the diverse skin tones and natural beauty of all black women.
As for some past beauties — several have gone on to become big celebrities, like “Foxy Brown” actress Pam Grier and Band of Gold singer Freda Payne. Jayne Kennedy, Judy Pace, Ja’Net DuBois (Willona on “Good Times”) and Lola Falana were also Jet Beauties at one point. Two singers of the Fifth Dimension were Jet Beauties of the Week (McCoo and Florence LaRue) while a third was a long-time Jet photographer who took many of the pictures: LeMonte McLemore.
Jet Beauty of the Week collage at Studio Museum of Harlem