For my capstone, I decided to do a “photo shoot” of my friends wearing pieces of clothing and jewelry that showed the evolution and impact of African American culture on the world today. This was a self-discovery for me because I do not know much about African American culture myself and I feel as though this is something I should know especially since deciding to go to an HBCU for college. I had to do a lot of research on things that came from African American culture not just from today but from years back also and see how it had/has an impact on the world and its influences throughout history. I learned a lot about the original meanings behind some clothing and how the black community decided to change the meaning by embracing them. I believe a lot of people are ignorant of the impact African American culture has given the world and it’s not their own fault. So for this project, I had to find my “ models” aka my friends and find jewelry and clothes that black women from the late 90s and early 2000s use to wear and then talk about what those pieces represented back then and how some women turned the bad dehumanizing meanings behind certain pieces of jewelry into the uplifting, encouraging and powerful symbols that they are today. The biggest surprise and most interesting thing that I learned throughout all of this was about the meaning behind hoop earrings and how much that meaning has changed today. Now you see everyone rocking big gold and silver hoops but not everyone knows that back then it would be a disgrace to walk outside with them on.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JoeN2mtZN98cCJf2iQn1vp2GhDKq9NZxQzC93_mb6L4/edit?usp=sharing