Fashion in Action Favorite 

On the opening day of the Spring/Summer 2011's season of Mercedes Benz's New York Fashion Week, former fashion editor, speaker, and fashion activist Michaela Angela Davis led a protest of approximately 20 black women, dressed in black suits, carrying signs with the names of every fashion editor in the 40 year history of African American fashion and lifestyle magazine, Essence Magazine. The protest was sparked by the recent assignment of Ellianna Placas, a white American fashion editor to the publication, which sparked controversy primarily because, with the final assignment of Placas to the position, there were no longer any African American/black fashion editors in U.S. mainstream publications. The signs read the declarative statements such as "I am Susan L. Taylor," "I am Kevin Stewart," and "I am Pamela Macklin," as an effort to celebrate the legacy of black fashion editors in order to spark conversation and attention around the contemporary lack. "These young women are celebrating the people who led the way for black women everywhere," said former Essence fashion editor Michaela Angela Davis, and organizer of the protest. The protest, held at the new location of New York Fashion Week, inspired followup conversations and round table discussions regarding the lack of racial diversity in mainstream fashion publications. The march was inspired by the "I am a Man March" that took place in 1968 during the Civil Rights Movement.