Rooted in Genes

It is no secret that denim is a staple of not only Black and Afro-American culture and history. From the Civil Rights Movement and Black equestrians, to hip-hop and rock n’ roll, jeans have made their mark in African American history.

In West African culture, adire cloth has a huge spiritual significance. Enslaved Africans who were taken to the U.S. through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade brought with them the knowledge of how to extract indigo dye. This knowledge was exploited by plantation owners to create what became a major cash crop.

Denim was a textile that eventually became known as “Negro Cloth” in the 18th and 19th centuries because it was primarily produced and worn by enslaved Black people. The enslaved were issued uniforms by plantation owners, and denim became a popular choice for the enslaved due to its durability and inexpensiveness. This led to a heavy stigmatization of the cloth. Simultaneously, Black and Indigenous people established jeans as an essential piece of the Cowboy aesthetic in the Wild West. After the abolition of slavery, jeans eventually became symbolic of America’s working class. In the 1960s, fashion was activism; blue jeans were donned by activists in the Civil Rights Movement to display their solidarity with sharecroppers in the South. Throughout the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, various cuts and styles of jeans became staples for the fashion of each respective decade. There is no doubt that denim’s history with Black America runs deep.

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Host or Publisher Zora Flounory and Cierra Loftin