African women‬ are beautiful in every unique way, no matter their skin tone, whether of dark or light hues. We are unique and strong and beautiful and our differences are worth celebrating].

Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare.

Dear black girl, don't be afraid to shine. Your hair is beautiful and your skin is divine.

The reality in the African (model) industry is: the lighter your skin tone the more beautiful you are.

Darkness makes any woman fair.

I have never attempted to change my skin. I am natural. People in Europe and America love my dark skin. But here in Kenya, in my home country, some consider it not attractive.

We must have a glorified womanhood that can look any man in the face — white, red, yellow, brown or black — and tell of the nobility of character within black womanhood.

"Black Beauty"

I paint my nails black,
I dye my hair a darker shade of brown
'Cause you like your women Spanish, dark, strong and proud
I paint the sky black
You said if you could have your way
You'd make a night time of today
So it'd suit the mood of your soul

Oh, what can I do?
Nothing, my sparrow blue
Oh, what can I do?
Life is beautiful but you don't have a clue
Sun and ocean blue
Their magnificence, it don't make sense to you

Black beauty, oh oh oh
Black beauty, oh oh oh

I paint the house black
My wedding dress black leather too
You have no room for light
Love is lost on you
I keep my lips red
The same like cherries in the spring
Darling, you can't let everything
Seem so dark blue

Oh, what can I do?
To turn you on or get through to you
Oh, what can I do?
Life is beautiful but you don't have a clue
Sun and ocean blue
Their magnificence, it don't make sense to you

Black beauty, oh oh oh
Black beauty, oh oh oh

Black beauty, ah ah
Black beauty, ah ah
Black beauty, ah ah ah ah
Black beauty, baby
Black beauty, baby

Oh, what can I do?
Life is beautiful but you don't have a clue
Sun and ocean blue
Their magnificence, it don't make sense to you

Black beauty, oh oh oh
Black beauty, oh oh oh
Black beauty, oh oh oh
Black beauty, oh oh oh

In America, black is beautiful. To be black is to be more righteous, nobler; carry the heaviest historic baggage — heavier than the Holocaust — and be encouraged to perpetually and publicly pick at those suppurating sores. To be black is to have an unwritten, implicit social contract with wider, whiter society. To be black it to be born with an IOY (I Own You); it is to be owed apologies, obsequiousness, education, and auto-exculpation for any wrongdoing.

Women are beautiful in the light of the day, but are even more so in the shadows of the night.

My skin is more beautiful than yours. I would be quite more popular in jail if I so chose.

My skin as an African American tends to be a little drier, since I’m getting up there, just going outside in the sun, and all the years of the things that I’ve done to my body being in the entertainment business. For me, it was having hyperpigmentation or sometimes you get light spots. I wanted to do something that represented me. I wanted something that I knew really worked.

When beauty is white and I am dark, it means that I am more likely to be punished in school, to receive higher sentences for crimes, less likely to marry, and less likely to marry someone with equal or higher economic status.16 Denying these empirical realities is its own kind of violence, even when our intentions are good. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that ugly is as ugly does. Both are lies. Ugly is everything done to you in the name of beauty. Knowing the difference is part of getting free.

For me, it’s about embracing our inner beauty and having it seen outwardly. The root of it is not about being valued for looks; it is about empowerment and Black women owning who they were and their own place in history.