How This Black 80-something Granny Made the Cover of a High-Fashion Magazine and Has Become an Instagram Fashion Queen

Explore Our Galleries

An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Click Here

Ways to Support ABHM?

Click Here

November 18, 2024

By Angela Johnson, The Root

Now in her mid-80s, Margaret Chola has over 63,000 Instagram followers who flock to her page to check out her high-fashion shots

The Root, Screenshot: Instagram/legendary_glamma

When most people think of their grandmothers, they think about a strong, nurturing woman who bakes delicious cakes and keeps a permanent supply of peppermints in her pocketbook.

But Margaret Chola has flipped the idea of a traditional granny on its head. The eightysomething is a digital content creator known for her high-fashion photoshoots featuring colorful clothes and oversized sunglasses against a beautiful Zambian backdrop.

Chola became Instafamous in 2023 after a visit from her granddaughter, New York stylist Diana Kaumba. Kaumba made the trip to Chola’s village in Zambia to honor the anniversary of her father’s passing, someone she credited with inspiring her love of fashion. What started as a fun idea for Kaumba and the woman she affectionately calls “Mbuya” to switch clothes turned into an epic photoshoot that made her grandma a social media celebrity.

“I thought it would be nice to dress up Mbuya in high fashion and then take photographs of her in her natural habitat,” Kaumba told the BBC.

[…]

The glow up has made a difference to Chola as well, who says she’s been invigorated by her stylish new look.

“I feel different, I feel new and alive in these clothes, in a way that I’ve never felt before,” Ms Chola told the BBC in an interview. “I feel like I can conquer the world!”

Find the article here.

Read the BBC interview with Margaret Chola.

See how fashion has illustrated the African Diaspora.

More Breaking News.

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.