Naomi Sims

Naomi Ruth Sims was born on the thirtieth of March 1948 in Oxford, Mississippi, the youngest of three daughters of John Sims, who worked as a porter, and Elizabeth Sims. Her parents parted while she was very young, and she moved with her mother and sisters to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A childhood marked by illness in the family and time in foster care did not dim her; standing five feet ten by the age of thirteen, she carried an early stature that the world would one day call unforgettable.

After graduating from Westinghouse High School in Pittsburgh, Sims moved to New York and studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Turned away by agencies that told her that her dark skin would not sell, she went directly to photographers instead. Gösta Peterson photographed her for the cover of The New York Times fashion supplement in 1967, and the image opened doors that prejudice had tried to shut.

In November 1968 she became the first Black model to appear on the cover of Ladies' Home Journal, and in 1969 the first on the cover of Life. Across those years her face graced Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and the great bastions of American fashion, making her, by wide agreement, the first Black supermodel and a defining image of the "Black is Beautiful" movement.

In 1973 Sims retired from the runway to build her own house of business, founding the Naomi Sims Collection of wigs designed for the texture of Black hair, later expanding into cosmetics and authoring several books on beauty and success for Black women. She died on the first of August 2009. She opened a road that had been closed, and walked it with a grace that still lights the way for those who follow.