This post is long overdue. I meant to develop and post in February during Black History Month, however, school and other obligations kept me from doing so.

It wasn’t the easiest finding these photographs. Some were easily spotted in catalogs of Oak Bluffs/Inkwell Beach and others were simple finds via a vintage HBCU search. But many of them required searching specific terminology because a google image search of “preppy” doesn’t supply many authentic snapshots of black preppy people.

With my intent to showcase black preps and our embarking on a new decade, I decided that a gallery of black preps over the past century would give them the visibility they deserve. So many modern black preps struggle to see themselves in today’s preppy sphere and this is a reminder to them that black preppy people have always existed – they’ve always belonged.

Roaring Twenties

Thirties

Fourties

Fifties

Sixties

Seventies

Eighties

Present

The photos from the modern day preps include these amazing bloggers/creatives (in order): ClosetConfections, Dave_wMoney3, BlueBooksPinkPens, JacksonJReese, ‘Lil Ol’ Me, MrParker1967, TheDailyElliott, AlanaAskew, TheDrk_Knight, The Fords: Victoria & Marcus and, AmbitiouslyCierra.

The cover photo is from a photoshoot entitled The Black Ivy by Street Etiquette. They have a full set of photos so please click the link above to view all of their beautiful work!

Most of these and more are found in the following catalogs: Essence, James Van Der Zee, NewsLinq, Black Southern Belle, Vineyard Gazette, NMAAHC, Mashable, Glamour Daze, Designing Your Trust. Others are products of Pinterest, Google, and Morgan State University yearbooks.