The Unstoppables is a series about people whose ambition is undimmed by time. Below, Bethann Hardison explains, in her own words, what continues to motivate her.
I was a latchkey kid, raised in Brooklyn by my grandmother and my mother, who worked as domestics. I started going out on the streets on my own at 7. I’d come home from school, put on my play clothes, and from three o’clock until around six or seven, I’d wander the neighborhood with total freedom. Later I went to live with my father, who was a supervisor at the Albany housing projects in Crown Heights and an orthodox Muslim imam.
I didn’t have helicopter parents. None of that existed for me. Nobody was scheduling my day. I was allowed to make my own decisions, and that was a great lesson on how to make a success of yourself.
I went after things. Once, when I was 11, I saw a sign through a bus window for a tap dance studio. It was run by a very well-known hoofer. I got off the bus, went in, and he showed me some steps. He started giving me lessons and, eventually, I had a little trio, and he put me in his revue. He had to go to my parents first, of course, to prove there was nothing funny going on.
I got into the High School of Performing Arts, which was highly competitive, but decided to go to the George W. Wingate High School in Brooklyn instead. Wingate at the time was all white. This cool white guy with double-pleated pants and wingtip shoes came to our school to give a presentation. I was so impressed with the look of him and of the school, I said to my friend, “Let’s go there.”
We didn’t realize that what we were doing was busing. It just looked cool. And that school was a blessing from Allah. I ran track for the Police Athletic League and was the school’s first Black cheerleader.
Sure, I’ve made mistakes — getting married too young, getting pregnant too young. It looked grim for a minute, but I was destined not to be stuck in it. I went to work in a button factory in the garment district, a job I found though an ad in The New York Times. Eventually the person who discovered me was the designer Willi Smith.
In the garment district back then, they had runners who took samples around to manufacturers. I was supposed to be an assistant, but the guy who hired me decided, whenever custom buttons were ready, to send me.
Willi asked one of the runners, “Do you know this girl?” He showed her a picture. She gave him my number, and he called, asking if I’d consider modeling. I told my boss, and he said, “Yeah, yeah, you should do that.”
I can’t say I had a plan or a specific thing I was passionate about doing. All my life projects found me. My feeling is we come here destined to do certain things, and you put it together out of instinct, not knowing the outcome.
People can’t grasp that, but I know and believe it in my heart. I mean, do you think I wanted to have a modeling agency? Come on! It was a case of “You’ve got to do this.” Nobody was representing Black models.
And it was never a Black agency, per se. Most of my kids were white because I had to compete with my white counterparts. The difference was that I made it a point to include Black kids, Latin kids, Asian kids. Many people thought the Black Girls Coalition, which I started in 1988 with Iman, was all about racism. It wasn’t. It was about not thinking of Black girls as onesies — that you could hire just one for a show.
I’m proud of the work I did, helping change an entire industry. Any way you can embrace color and put it in people’s face is good.
Now I find people regard me in a certain way. They tell me I have a special way of saying things, and maybe that’s wisdom. Do I need to keep working work just to work? Hell, no. I’d rather lay in a hammock with a joint and a tequila. But I’ve done this documentary, and I’m writing my memoir because the children have to know the stories. Black people got so used to having things taken from us that my mantra is “Don’t let nobody try to take something from you.” Take no nonsense.
I also say that, in this life, people who produce are going to continue to produce. If it’s in the nature of your being, it’s not ego. It’s about never wanting to leave undone something that needs to be done. I can’t leave this earth with people saying, “What was her name again?” That’s why, in my mind, I’m not 81. I’m still 38.
Recent and upcoming projects: “Invisible Beauty,” a documentary on her five-decade career, directed by Ms. Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng and released in September 2023. She is at work on a memoir scheduled for publication in 2025.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
