Barbara Summers

Barbara Summers (September 6, 1944 – November 2014)[1][2][3] was an American writer and educator who had also had a long and successful career as a fashion model, working for 17 years with Ford Models, one of America's top agencies.[4][5] Her 1998 book, Skin Deep – the story of Black models in America and abroad – is a definitive work on black women in the modeling industry.[6] for which she spent more a decade interviewing fashion professionals on three continents to record their experiences,[4]

Biography

Education and career

Barbara Gene Summers was born in Springfield, Mass., to Don and Lucy Summers,[7] the second of her parents' five children.[8] In her own words: "My wonderful, hard-working father used to call me Daughter #2. He and my mother had 4 girls before their one and only son arrived."[9] She grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, where her family moved in 1949.[8] She graduated from Weaver High School in 1963[8] and then went to the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a B.A. degree. She subsequently did graduate studies at Yale University and then the University of Paris at the Sorbonne,[1] where she "promptly became a grad school dropout and a lifelong Francophile".[9] After living in Paris, she moved to Puerto Rico and Haiti, staying there for several years[8] with her husband Marc Albert and their son.[6][10] Back in New York City, she began her career as a model while working as a college instructor, and she latterly returned to academia, teaching at Hostos Community College in the Bronx.[3][8]

As a writer and editor, she published works including I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America (1989), Nouvelle Soul: Short Stories (1992), The Price You Pay (a novel set in the world of modeling,[11] 1993), Skin Deep: Inside the World of Black Fashion Models (1998), Black and Beautiful: How Women of Color Changed the Fashion Industry (2001), and Open the Unusual Door: True-Life Stories of Challenge, Adventure, and Success by Black Americans (2005). Her most notable writing is her 1998 book Skin Deep, which explores the role of African-American models within the fashion industry and the emergence of black designers, and "presents a fascinating portrait of black supermodels",[1][12] including profiles of Dorothea Towles, Beverly Johnson, Iman, Barbara Cheeseborough, and others.

Summers wrote of herself: "In the surprising adventure that is my life, I have been a Ford fashion model, a world traveler, a teacher, a writer and editor, a lover, wife, and mother, a sister to several, a good friend to many. I define myself as an artist. Artists are charged with the special responsibility not just to speak truth but to sing it. I believe: *We are all related - literally. *While politicians, terrorists, and maniacs of power strive mightily to prove otherwise, war is not the answer. Love is."[9]

She died unexpectedly in 2014 at the age of 70.[8]

Personal life

Barbara Summers' son is the animator/producer Kimson Albert.[6] She was also survived by her sisters, Lucy Summers and Dona Carter, and brother Don Summers, her elder sister Sandy Head having predeceased her.[8]

Bibliography
  • (Editor) Brian Lanker, I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1989.
  • Nouvelle Soul: Short Stories, New York: Amistad, 1992.
  • The Price You Pay (novel), New York: Amistad, 1993. ISBN 978-1567430479
  • Skin Deep: Inside the World of Black Fashion Models, New York: Amistad, 1998.
  • Black and Beautiful: How Women of Color Changed the Fashion Industry, New York: Amistad, 2001.
  • (Editor and author of introduction) Open the Unusual Door: True-Life Stories of Challenge, Adventure, and Success by Black Americans, Boston, MA: Graphia, 2005.[13]

References
  1. "Summers, Barbara 1944-", Something About the Author. 2008. Retrieved May 30, 2015, from Encyclopedia.com.
  2. "Barbara Summers 1944 - 2014" Archived October 1, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Carole D. Fredericks Foundation, Inc.
  3. Steve, "Barbara Summers - 1944-2014", Pictures of Beautiful Women, October 24, 2014.
  4. "Skin Deep: Inside the world of Black fashion models", at Amazon.
  5. Karen Grigsby Bates, "Black Models Celebrated As Runway Revolutionaries", NPR, January 23, 2011.
  6. "Model/author Barbara Summers", Pictures of Beautiful Women, January 26, 2010.
  7. Constance Neyer and Cindy Brown Austin, "Lucy Cooper Summers Dies At 75", Hartford Courant, June 15, 1995.
  8. "Obituary: A Life Journey – Barbara Summer", Carole D. Fredericks Foundation, Inc.
  9. Barbara Summers page at Amazon.com.
  10. Marc Albert Levin, "Ginsberg", La Gazette de La Lucarne, 2008, N° 7, p. 11.
  11. "The Price You Pay — Barbara Summers, Author", Publishers Weekly, May 31, 1993.
  12. Ann Burns, Library Journal, November 1, 1998, p. 117.
  13. "Open the Unusual Door : True Life Stories of Challenge, Adventure, and Success by Black Americans", Houghton Mifflin Harcourt website.
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