Ophelia DeVore-Mitchell (Born 1921): Teaching America that black was beautiful. |
Ophelia DeVore-Mitchell (Born 1921): Teaching America that black was beautiful.
The Lives They Lived
The New York Times Magazine
2014-12-25
 DeVore-Mitchell during her modeling days. Photograph by Rupert Callender from the DeVore family archive |
One day in 1946, a black woman showed up at the Vogue School of Modeling in New York, seeking to learn the trade. Her arrival caused a stir. The nascent modeling industry was as deeply segregated as America was then, and she was turned away. At the time, the Vogue School of Modeling did not accept black women. Or so it thought.
Unknown to the school, one was already enrolled: Ophelia DeVore-Mitchell. And she had no idea that Vogue was unaware. “I thought they knew what I was,” DeVore-Mitchell would tell Ebony magazine years later. She had not lied to get in; she was so light-skinned that no one thought to ask. She passed inadvertently…
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