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Now more than ever, Black culture is under attack in the United States. Trump and his band of petty tyrants want to erase Black history, ban books, and erase Black people from the fabric of American identity.
We’re not going to let him have his version of “making America great again.”
Help us defend our past, present, and future in our fight against tyrants and for Black liberation by donating anything you can right now.
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John,
Black people are movers, shakers, and cultural innovators, and that couldn’t be more true than when we look at the history of grills.
Nowadays, you might see anyone wearing grills as a form of expression and fashion (even K-pop star Jennie had grills on in her music video with Doechii).
But before grills became mainstream, they were firmly rooted in hip-hop, rap, and Black creative culture.
Poor folks used gold to replace missing teeth. This was particularly popular among poor Black New Yorkers who helped popularize the style.
Pioneers like “Famous” Eddie Plein, a jeweler from New York and the inventor of the gold front grill as we know it today, helped turn a sign of poverty into the fashion statement that we know today.
Grills began appearing in the mouths of New York rappers like Just-Ice, Big Daddy Kane, and Kool G. Rap.
From New York, grills spread down South to Atlanta and Houston, where jewelry giants Johnny Dang and Paul Wall have their jewelry businesses based.
Of course, if something is cool and Black people wear it, it’s gonna get criminalized, and as the popularity of grills spread, they were specifically banned in schools across the country.
But as their notoriety grew, so did their place in fashion.
Now, celebrities and fashion icons of all backgrounds can be seen wearing grills. They are firmly cemented in fashion, music, and culture.
Grills are just another example of how we move and shape popular culture. We know it may seem like now isn’t the time to be talking about “culture”—in the face of right-wing authoritarianism, unprecedented attacks on our Democracy, and Black people everywhere.
But from our lens, culture is a major key 🔑 to how we resist, find joy, and build a brighter future. It’s how we lead with love, and build solidarity and community.
Culture is everything. And by honoring it, living it, and breathing it, we will build a future where Black people can thrive.
In love and solidarity,
Black Lives Matter
Our grassroots movement is pushing for Black liberation every single day. We are striving to create a world where Black people do so much more than just survive. It’s time we thrive.
As an organization one of our biggest hurdles is consistency.
A recurring contribution of anything you can afford goes a long way as we plan for the months, years, and even decades ahead. This is the most effective way for small-dollar donors (like you) to power our Black liberation work.
Will you make a recurring contribution of $5 or more today so that we can keep building momentum for our movement?
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Black Lives Matter imagines a world where Black people across the diaspora thrive, experience joy, and are not defined by their struggles.
In pursuing liberation, we envision a future fully divested from police, prisons, and all punishment paradigms and which invests in justice, joy, and culture. Email is the most important way we keep in touch with our supporters. But we know there's a lot going on.
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