For Americans, “Black is beautiful” is a phrase inextricably linked to the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s. The message resonated with contemporary ideas of shifting the paradigm of what “beauty” was to include the natural hair and darker skin of African Americans. It also served to help reverse psychologically damaging societal ideas that anything associated with the physical characteristics of Blackness was inherently bad or ugly.
But in West Germany in the 1970s, the phrase “Black is beautiful” was the slogan adopted by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the major party of the center right in German politics. How did the phrase come to be used in this way? What did it mean in German politics, and how does its use track with current ideas about cultural appropriation in the U.S.? SFS Professor Anna von der Goltz, who researches postwar German history and German political activism in the years around 1968, has a new article in Studies in Contemporary History that examines this chapter in German politics called “Black is Beautiful.” The article was recently highlighted in a piece in one of Germany’s most influential newspapers, Die Zeit. We caught up with von der Goltz to ask a few questions about the article.
- You write that it is easy to mock how “a party dominated by older white men sought to rejuvenate its flagging image by using a slogan, imagery and musical style associated with Black liberation, and in doing so managed to completely erase the anti-racist origins and thrust of the movement.” But briefly, what do you believe the Christian Democrats were actually trying to communicate with this messaging?
They were trying to appear modern and youthful at a moment when many voters considered Christian Democrats old-fashioned. Associating their party with a U.S. protest movement and using an English language slogan signaled that they kept up with the times. The campaign made sense according to the logic of contemporary advertising and it occurred during a time when Germans generally paid a lot of attention to the Black freedom struggle.
- The “Black is Beautiful” CDU advertising campaign began in 1972, well before current thinking about cultural appropriation was in place in the U.S. But the use of “Black is Beautiful” on CDU merchandise has continued at least through 2023. Are current German ideas about cultural appropriation and antiracism—or at least, what constitutes a “bad look”—very different from those in the U.S.?
Things have changed since the 1970s, of course, but German ideas about cultural appropriation and anti-racism are quite different from those in the U.S. Germans pride themselves on leaving Nazi-era racism behind, but the focus on overcoming antisemitism has in some ways made them reluctant to engage with other forms of racial prejudice in their society, including anti-Black racism—around which there is, of course, much more awareness and discussion in the U.S. I was nevertheless surprised by the longevity of the Christian Democrats’ reliance on “Black is beautiful,” which is one reason why I decided to write about it. They still used the slogan at a time when they should probably have known better.
- Why do you think Die Zeit wanted to highlight your article? Is there something happening in Germany now that makes this topic especially relevant?
Die Zeit immediately picked it up, because Germany will again have early elections in February and because the CDU, which has been in opposition for the past few years, is again trying to appear “modern,” “cool,” etc. In short, history doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. This is one of those moments.