Nov
What Sylvia Harris Means to Me
Sylvia Harris is my light. I had several men and women graphic designers I could look up to. But when I graduated from Howard University in 2005, I did not see any older black women who were operating at the highest levels in graphic design. Most were teachers or under the radar. No one was as visible as Sylvia.
She was also indirectly influential on my career. She was a pioneer in government and nonprofit work. Her work on the 2000 Census form was groundbreaking. She believed that designers have a incredible impact for social good. She is the reason why many more women of color like me work in nonprofits.
”She believed that designers have a incredible impact for social good.
Sylvia Harris died at 57 of sudden cardiac death. A few years later she was posthumously honored with an AIGA Medal, one of the highest honors one can receive in our industry. AIGA also honored her by putting scholarship in her name. The Sylvia Harris Citizen Design Award is given to recipients who exercise a design solution that aims to provide a social good.
But her legacy for me is marked by how she died. She was reportedly on a business trip in Washington when she suddenly went into cardiac arrest. For years I was concerned about how a woman so seemingly vital died at such a young age. It could have been hereditary, or an unchecked diagnosis. Honestly, I suspect it has more to do with how black women are socialized be imperviously strong, to care for others, but rarely care for themselves. In Melissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America Harris-Perry cites the 1995 Detroit Area Study, a “detailed survey of several hundred men and women, both black and white, that examined the social influences affecting physical and mental health”
While black women reported feeling loved by their friends and families as much as other groups, they also experienced families as a site of demands and burdens … Black women reported lower quality of health, less satisfaction with their lives, and a greater sense of being burdened. No other group shares this unique constellation of concerns.
… Rugged individualism does not make black women any more satisfied with their lives, but the significant demands placed on them by their families substantially reduce their satisfaction. These data suggest that the myth of strength exacts a real and measurable emotional cost.
I suspect this, not because I read some black feminist scholar’s book. But because I’d lived with those burdens for years. I, too, had been socialized into thinking that you put others’s needs before your own. Doing any less is seen as self-indulgent. Because I refuse to do design work for free, insist on written contracts, not take pay cuts or low-ball offers, apply for more high-profile positions, and not stay silent, I go against the grain of what is expected not just as a black creative professional, but as a black woman.
In the years following Sylvia Harris’ death, when Sylvia’s fellow designers and friends memorialized her, I read blogs I thought festishized her skin tone or only mentioned the racism she faced as a child growing up in Richmond, VA.
Sylvia had skin the color of a perfect capuccino. She had enviable, long legs, and beautiful hands, and a big, hearty laugh that filled the room.
Video: If White People Were Described Like People of Color in Literature
While well-intended, they really only saw her through the fractured prism — the crooked room — of race and gender. They didn’t see the pleasure she took in her work. They didn’t recognize how she experienced racism as an adult, probably because they never asked. They didn’t see her as a disciplined information architect and an intellectual. They wanted a narrative that reinforces the myth that racism is in the past, and Sylvia’s big laugh, long legs, and cappuccino skin overcame all that.
”They wanted a narrative that reinforces the myth that racism is in the past, and Sylvia's big laugh, long legs, and cappuccino skin overcame all that.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be as revered as Sylvia Harris. But I vowed not to let someone’s fractured idea of me be my narrative.
So I started to write. And I started to realize that mere representation wasn’t enough. I can no longer afford to hang my hopes on a single bright light.
Sylvia Harris’ life and death will never dim the light she provides. But her legacy is a reminder that we must make room at the table for other black women designers, black women must make room for self-care, and that we must take time to tell our own story.