The Colored Girl Beautiful

The Colored Girl Beautiful (1916) is an etiquette book by Emma Azalia Hackley. Published toward the end of her life, The Colored Girl Beautiful draws from decades of experience as an activist and educator to provide a template for young African American girls looking to lead independent and productive lives. The work was compiled from a series of talks given by the author at boarding schools for African American girls around the country. “The beautiful part about the colored race in America, is the future. As a mixed race we are undeveloped. We may become whatever we WILL to become.” Musing on subjects as diverse as race, history, religion, beauty, and romance, Emma Azalia Hackley offers her vision of a brighter future for young African American women. Her words are assuring, powerful, kind, and honest. Her goal is to foster confidence and strength, in order that her readers might succeed in a world which all too often threatens their continued existence. With such lessons, she hopes to grow leaders who will one day change the world. This edition of Emma Azalia Hackley’s The Colored Girl Beautiful is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.

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Emma Azalia Hackley (1867-1922) was an African American writer, teacher, singer, and activist. Born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, she began taking piano, voice, and violin lessons at a young age. Despite her light skin and hair color, she refused to pass as white in order to streamline her musical career, preferring instead to put her heritage at the forefront of her personal identity. She graduated from high school in 1886 in Detroit, Michigan, where she had moved with her parents several years prior. While working as an elementary school teacher, she married attorney and newspaperman Edwin Henry Hackley, with whom she would move to Denver, Colorado. There, Hackley founded the Colored Women’s League and the Imperial Order of Libyans, taught music to countless African American students, and earned her bachelor’s degree from the Denver School of Music. In 1905, she divorced her husband and relocated to Philadelphia, where she worked as musical director for a local Episcopal church. Hackley, who founded the Vocal Normal Institute in Chicago in 1911, was highly regarded as a teacher, working with such artists as Marian Anderson, Roland Hayes, and R. Nathaniel Dett. In 1916, she published The Colored Girl Beautiful, an etiquette book for young African American women.