The Smithian

March 31st, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

elizabitchtaylor:

Peggy Berry, Playboy Bunny 1972

A Chocolate Bunny

[meaningful glance]

Reblogged from Fashion Citizen

January 16th, 2012

thesmithian

The family often used to ride with me to the Atlanta airport, and on our way, we always passed Funtown, a sort of miniature Disneyland with mechanical rides and that sort of thing. Yolanda would inevitably say, “I want to go to Funtown,” and I would always evade a direct reply. I really didn’t know how to explain to her why she couldn’t go. Then one day at home, she ran downstairs exclaiming that a TV commercial was urging people to come to Funtown. Then my wife and I had to sit down with her between us and try to explain it. I have won some applause as a speaker, but my tongue twisted and my speech stammered seeking to explain to my six-year-old daughter why the public invitation on television didn’t include her, and others like her. One of the most painful experiences I have ever faced was to see her tears when I told her that Funtown was closed to colored children, for I realized that at that moment the first dark cloud of inferiority had floated into her little mental sky…

Martin Luther King Jr., from his 1964 interview (published in 1965) with Playboy, wherein, according to interviewer Alex Haley

he spoke with heartfelt and often eloquent sincerity, his tone was one of businesslike detachment. And his mood, except for one or two flickering smiles of irony, was gravely serious…

more.