Beverly Johnson’s Modeling Career Through the Years: From Groundbreaking Cover Girl to Off-Broadway Debut

Beverly Johnson changed beauty standards after she became the first Black model to appear on the cover of Vogue in 1974. Before she walked the runways of Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Halston, however, Johnson had her sights set on becoming a lawyer. “I saw on television the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King,” Johnson said in a 2014 CNN interview. “I remember that black-and-white television set and watching the [police] dogs attacking people. There was just something about the injustice of that that I wanted to address as a lawyer.” Little did Johnson know, she would launch a civil rights movement of her own in the fashion industry. Johnson Enters the Modeling Industry Beverly Johnson walks for Halston in 1973. It was the summer after her freshman year at Northeastern University that Johnson considered modeling. Her mother, Gloria, accompanied her on a trip to New York City in 1971. There, they met with Alex Lieberman, editorial director of Condé Nast. It was through this meeting that Johnson landed her first modeling gig with Glamour, eventually appearing on multiple covers of the magazine in the early ’70s. “[The editors] were fascinated because the response was always positive when they put me on their cover,” Johnson

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