By Sonja D. Gracy
All photos provided by Roshumba Williams.
Forerunner – noun: a person or thing that precedes the coming or development of someone or something else, 2. a sign of something to come.
Since the 1990s, African-American supermodel Roshumba Williams has been wowing runway and red carpet spaces with beauty, distinction, and a sass and class that's all her own. Roshumba, whose name in Swahili means "beautiful," first nabbed "fit model work" with fashion legend Yves Saint Laurent as a nineteen-year-old just two days after arriving in Paris. Ever since, the model and actress who has graced magazine covers and fashion ads infinitum from Essence to Elle to Clairol, CoverGirl, and Maybelline, and has been featured in four famed Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issues, has appeared in a myriad of fashion reality TV shows and is a perennial, present-day annual Oscar's Red Carpet fashion correspondent favorite.
The "Complete Idiot's Guide to Being a Model" author first etched her inimitable look in American and international fashion forums decades ago, wearing a short, natural 'fro with a confidence and an unapologetic vigor that is very much analogous to the spirit of the 2019 CROWN Act. This "Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair" legislation collaboration was established by the Unilever company's Dove brand, the Crown Coalition, and former California State Senator Holly J. Mitchell—now igniting the way for the ubiquitousness of natural and textured hairstyles in all of its heralding across all spaces today. Decades before this popular, counter-dominant cultural piece of legislation prohibiting discrimination against wearing natural and textured hairstyles was Roshumba, blitzing fashion ads and magazine covers in mahogany skin and a short, cropped Afro transcendentally. Roshumba was doing it unabashedly in naturally-textured hair and Black and white fashion industry marketing venues across her industry. Wigs, weaves, and straight hair ruled beauty industry protocol back then. Roshumba's self-love and confidence, along with the industry's penchant for something "fresh and new", marked her as distinguishably compelling as her fellow top-model peers at that time.
"When I started working in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Paris, fashion was at the height of long hair," said Roshumba. "Fortunately, the industry's desire for the next new thing opened the door for me because I had short natural hair. This became my trademark similar to Cindy Crawford's mole."
Roshumba thinks her trademark short 'fro hairstyle, in tandem with other pop culture phenomena at that time, helped spur a wider appreciation and acceptance of natural Black hair among emerging Black generations.
"The fashion industry is so visually powerful," says Roshumba. "It has the ability to globally influence socially acceptable physical appearance. Around the same time, my look was being celebrated on the fashion runways, in magazines, and in product endorsements, the show A Different World was taking off and a lot of the characters wore natural hairstyles. It was during this time I noticed a new generation of young people were embracing their natural hair and styles."
Roshumba, who believes that "a person's hair texture and style is a form of self-expression," says she encountered moments in her career where she had been pressured to conform to dominant culture standards for straight hair but did not and stood her ground. She says she is glad she did and is happy that natural hair is protected now.
"I feel very proud that natural hairstyles are now socially accepted and considered beautiful," says Roshumba. "Now, I see natural hair being worn everywhere by politicians, athletes, in Hollywood, the medical profession, and all over the fashion industry. I am so happy I did not give in, when I was told, to wear a wig or alter my hair if I wanted to work in fashion. Deep down inside I felt beautiful with my short natural hair."
Roshumba's self-love and confidence roused the regal manner in which she donned her native, natural Black hair that helped spur and trendset the 1990s and new millennium uptick of increased embrace and visibility of natural hairstyles and nouveau afros. This confidence was borne by an affirming Black mother who intentionally encouraged Roshumba to believe that her brown skin and Black hair were inherently appealing.
"My courage to stand up for myself and the belief that I am beautiful with my natural short hair comes from my upbringing," says the still resplendently beautiful supermodel. "My mother loved me and poured self-love and confidence into me. My mother encouraged me to love myself from head to toe, inside and out. I was also taught to be the change you want to see."
When asked what she wanted Black girls, women, and boys to know about The CROWN Act and its inextricable tie to our culture and social, emotional, and mental health, the still fabulous fashionista foreshadower said, "I want to let the next generation know what my mom taught me, you are beautiful, develop your skills and talents, and be your authentic self."
Her personal feelings about how non-African-American persons should contemplate the progressive, trailblazing piece of CROWN Act legislation is this: "If we all learn about each other’s culture we will discover that we have so many things in common to unite us. Also, we can learn to appreciate those things that make us unique."
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