Pretty Brown Girl Launches National Empowerment Movement (624 hits)
This month, one million girls around the country will be invited to take the Pretty Brown Girl pledge to honor their gifts and beauty within, as well as encourage cultural awareness.
-- Cultural mission created to inspire and encourage generations of African American girls --
Six year old Laila Crawley invites girls everwhere to participate in taking the Pretty Brown Girl Pledge.
Nationwide (August 1, 2011) -- This month, one million girls around the country will be invited to take the Pretty Brown Girl pledge to honor their gifts and beauty within, as well as encourage cultural awareness through service and recognition. The Pretty Brown Girl movement will be launched in six major metropolitan areas across the United States, starting with Detroit on August 21, 2011 at the International Black Expo at the Charles Wright Museum of African American History.
"Even though our country is statistically becoming more culturally diverse, we still have a long road ahead of us in ensuring our young brown girls feel comfortable in their own skin," says Pretty Brown Girl Founder Sheri Crawley. "My husband and I noticed that despite the representation of strong African American females in our daughters' lives, they were still drawn to assume white dolls and characters were 'prettier'. We wanted to create a movement to show them how pretty brown skin is and recognize this important message."
This trend and the need for self-esteem and positive self-images in children can be demonstrated from a report by Anderson Cooper on a recent CNN study conducted by renowned child psychologist and University of Chicago professor Margaret Beale Spencer, a leading researcher in the field of child development. Spencer's test aimed to re-create the landmark Black Doll Test from the 1940s conducted by Doctors Kenneth and Mamie Clark.
About Pretty Brown Girls Established in 2010, Pretty Brown Girl's mission is to empower girls to love themselves, help develop strong self-esteem and encourage cultural awareness. The Pretty Brown Girl brand encourages girls everywhere that love to have fun, learn, play, laugh and are happy in their own skin. The website offers "Pretty Brown Girl" branded products which include the book, Pretty Brown Girl, First Day of School by Sheri Crawley, apparel and accessories all branded with the Pretty Brown Girl logo. This fall the anticipated Signature Pretty Brown Girl, an African American Doll will be available.
The Pretty Brown Girl concept was inspired through an experience of Sheri and Corey Crawley with their two daughters, Laila and Aliya, ages 6 and 5, during a visit to the popular American Girl Place. The couple was very disappointed to find that the only black doll to choose from was a free slave. A donation of 5% of all Pretty Brown Girl online purchases is made to Keep A Child Alive. Songstress and Philanthropist Alicia Keys is the co-founder and Global Ambassador of Keep a Child Alive, a non-profit organization that provides medicine to families with HIV and AIDS in Africa.
