Tenderheaded: Black Identity in the World of Glamour: Our Hair & Our History
Michaela angela Davis in conversation with Bry Reed
France Hall
Maryland Center for History and Culture
610 Park Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21201
Saturday, April 11, 2026
12:30 PM – 2:00 PM
______________
CityLit welcomes fashion editor, image activist, and writer Michaela angela Davis to discuss her latest work, Tenderheaded, both a celebration of Black media’s vibrant history and a critical examination of its challenges and identity politics. Deemed a “cultural manifesto that reckons with the role media and American history play in the fascinating and chaotic shaping of a collective identity,” this memoir examines life as a Black woman with light skin, light eyes, and light hair in service to Black women always. It is a tribute to Black girls and women navigating a New York City cultural scene, hip-hop, and a reckoning with the media industry while coming of age in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and the “post-racial” Obama years. “Keenly observant and with exceptional taste, she spent most of her career putting her talents to use in the world of Black women’s fashion magazines, a small but influential (if grossly underappreciated) sector of New York’s publishing industry…Though Davis’ anecdotes of close encounters with the great and famous are certainly entertaining (and occasionally juicy), it’s the power and energy of her writing that makes her book such a pleasurable read,” states Kirkus Reviews. Michaela angela Davis is a writer, creative director, producer, and image activist focusing on the intersections of gender, race, fashion, culture, beauty, and identity. Bry Reed (she/they) is a Baltimore-born and based writer committed to the legacy of “The City That Reads.” She’s a regular contributor to the Baltimore Beat and a recent 2026 Baker Artist Literary Finalist.
Michaela angela Davis is a writer, creative director, producer, and image activist focusing on the intersections of gender, race, fashion, culture, beauty, and identity. She was the co-writer of Mariah Carey’s memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, which was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. She was the fashion, beauty, and culture editor at Essence magazine, the founding fashion director at VIBE magazine, and the creator of NAACP Award-nominated docuseries The Hair Tales, which she co-executive produced alongside Oprah Winfrey and Tracee Ellis Ross.
Instagram: @michaelaangelad
Bry Reed is a Baltimore-born and bred artist passionate about cultivating her local artistic community. She’s a 2026 Baker Artist Literary Finalist, a Rubys Artist Grant awardee, a board member for Writers in Baltimore Schools, and a Fellowship Advisor with New Generations Scholars Youth Archival Fellowship. Her work has appeared in The Baltimore Beat and The Washington Post, and she co-edited the essay collection Surviving The Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies with Raven Hudson and Shuli Branson for PM Press. Additionally, she enjoys engaging with other artists, community members, and thinkers in public forums. She has been featured on panels in collaboration with CityLit Project, Greedy Reads, Red Emma’s, The Clifton House, and other local art organizations.
Instagram: @thebryreed
______________
CityLit Project in partnership with Maryland Center for History and Culture present Bearing Witness: Literature as a Revolutionary Act. This celebration of the arts showcases a bevy of leading poets and writers on April 11, 2026. We’re talking fiction, nonfiction, poetry galore, and ways to up the ante on your craft.
Download the CityLit Festival: Bearing Witness flyer with the schedule.
Keep up with all things happening at CityLit by subscribing to our newsletter.