The Southern Belle was never meant to be Black.
The image was built on whiteness, wealth, and leisure, upheld by a system that excluded Black women entirely.
Today, Black women across Houston are confronting that legacy while reshaping what it means to be a Southern Belle in a modern Black context.
Historically, the Southern Belle emerged as an idealized representation of white womanhood in the pre-Civil War South. She was expected to be charming, modest, and dependent, her “delicacy” reinforcing racial and class hierarchies. The plantation economy allowed her to embody leisure while enslaved Black women performed the labor that sustained Southern households and culture.
But according to Dr. Karen Kossie-Chernyshev, a history professor at Texas Southern University, centering the term Southern Belle is one example of Black womanhood being misrepresented in history.
Black women did not arrive in the Americas without concepts of beauty, femininity, or self-presentation, she said. Enslaved African women carried cultural traditions with them, including adornment, braiding, color, and carriage, even as systems of enslavement worked to strip them of dignity and bodily autonomy.
“Enslavement was designed to strip women of femininity and beauty,” Kossie-Chernyshev said. “But Black women resisted that in subtle and persistent ways.”
The Southern Belle archetype, by contrast, was a constructed ideal tied to whiteness and economic privilege. While popular culture later romanticized the image through films like 1939’s Gone with the Wind, Kossie-Chernyshev says the ideal was largely reserved for women of the planter class, whose leisure was sustained by Black domestic labor. That dynamic, she said, complicates modern attempts to reclaim the term.
“Black women historically did not define their beauty in response to white women’s standards,” she said. “So resistance to the term makes sense.”
After emancipation, Black women navigated a new set of expectations shaped by survival, respectability, and safety. Dress, grooming, and etiquette became tools for protection and social mobility. Churches, HBCUs, sororities, and civic organizations emphasized presentation as a way to reclaim dignity in a society that routinely denied it.
Sunday church attire, gloves, hats, and formal dress offered moments where Black women could assert humanity after a week of labor. In some cases, clothing even functioned as resistance, signaling sanctity or respectability to protect against sexual violence in a post-slavery South.
“Black women were never allowed to just be pretty,” Kossie-Chernyshev said. “They always had to be strong at the same time.”
That history, she explained, is why the Southern Belle remains a fraught reference point. While Black women helped create Southern culture, from foodways to fashion to hospitality, their labor was excluded from the archetype’s rewards and recognition.
When the label doesn’t fit
“When I hear Southern Belle, I think of a white woman,” said Dr. Ashandra Batiste, founder and CEO of Elite Dental Wellness. “It doesn’t feel endearing because it wasn’t created with us in mind.”
“If we’re talking about intelligence, access, leadership, and running businesses, Black women have always embodied that,” she said. “But the definition has to be honest.”
She describes herself as a “Southern rebel,” someone who carries herself with dignity and elegance but refuses to romanticize the past. Raised in a family that emphasized education, discipline, and accountability, Batiste said she is intentional about passing those values to her children, particularly as she watches standards shift.
“We can’t lose the sense of pride in how we present ourselves and how we move through the world,” she said, noting concerns about younger generations being disconnected from both history and how Black people have to move in the world. “The standards have dropped to hell. We have to do better at teaching our children about etiquette, hospitality, and carrying themselves with confidence. You have the be the best version of yourself.”
Houston resident Demetra Liggins Banks embraces Southern hospitality and etiquette, but she resists labeling herself a Southern Belle.
“The word carries a history,” she said. “Even if parts of it resonate, I wouldn’t claim it.”
“The cornerstone of being a Southern woman is probably Southern hospitality and etiquette. “These are characteristics I proudly possess.”
Demetra Liggins Banks
Banks said she was raised around strong Southern women who modeled warmth and generosity without needing a title. For her, the reluctance is less about rejection and more about self-definition. She values tradition, but resists archetypes that feel limiting or outdated.
“The cornerstone of being a Southern woman is probably Southern hospitality and etiquette,” she said. “These are characteristics I proudly possess.”
Redefining Southern womanhood on Black terms
Popular culture has played a key role in expanding how the Southern Belle is imagined. Characters like Whitley Gilbert on A Different World offered a version of Southern refinement that was unapologetically Black, educated, and self-assured.
Reality television figures such as former Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks and shows like The Belle Collective further position Black Southern women as socially connected, financially empowered, and culturally influential.
These portrayals matter because they shift the archetype from a state of dependency to one of autonomy. The modern Southern Belle in entertainment is no longer defined by who she marries, but by what she builds, owns, and leads.
Tiffani Janelle, a Houston native and chef with more than two decades in the culinary industry, says that today’s Black Southern belle is a woman who moves through the world assured in who she is, benefiting from the groundwork laid by generations before her.
That foundation was built through service, hospitality, and community care. Janelle comes from a long line of women who served as church leaders, bakers, hosts, and caretakers, women who fed people not just with food, but with presence. That lineage directly shaped her life’s work.
As a private chef, Janelle has shared Southern-rooted cuisine across the globe, from Europe to the Caribbean, carrying family traditions with her into elite and international spaces.
Janelle now watches that legacy take shape through her 15-year-old daughter, who is beginning her own entrepreneurial journey. Her advice to young Black women is to understand that the world was not built with you in mind, but space has been carved out for you to occupy fully.
“Take up space,” she said. “Build something legacy-centered. There’s no timeline on purpose, but once you know you’re called to something, you belong there.”
Power of sisterhood
Carmen Jones, founder of Black Girl Social Club, frames the modern Black Southern Belle as someone rooted in values and intentional behavior. Raised learning etiquette and social standards from older generations, Jones views refinement not as elitism, but as respect and protection.
“Showing up with integrity, knowing how to move in different spaces, and honoring community still matters,” she said. Her work emphasizes mentorship, accountability, and the preservation of traditions that have long helped Black women navigate Southern society.
Through Black Girl Social Club, Jones creates spaces centered on mentorship, accountability, and sisterhood, reinforcing values she believes have been diluted over time. Her work is about preserving standards while allowing Black women to define them for themselves.
Michiel Perry, founder of BSB Media, describes Black Southern Belles as women who have always shaped Southern culture, even when they were excluded from its imagery.
“To me, I think of the women in my family (from the hairdressers to the seamstresses) and who grew up with in church, through community activities, the teachers and administrators at my schools,” she said. “The archetype to me means the women who are the artisans of the traditions of home and lifestyle, whether they worked on a farm, factory, campus, or office. She is a woman who serves her community through hospitality, graciousness, and tradition.”
Perry created BSB Media after noticing a lack of Black Southern lifestyle representation while planning her wedding and decorating her home.
“When I was planning my wedding and decorating my home, I wasn’t seeing enough Black and southern lifestyle content, especially Black-owned vendors,” she said. “I wanted monogrammed items that represented the HBCUs my bridesmaids attended, and it inspired me to find this content, and when I didn’t see it, I bought the URL and went from there.
What began as a personal search became a platform highlighting Black-owned businesses, home décor, food, travel, and family traditions. Perry views the work as honoring skills Black women have long practiced.
“I believe we are here to shine a light on what has already existed within our communities and to honor that tradition,” Perry said. “Our ancestors created and developed these crafts and expertise in home and entertaining, and today’s modern women are continuing the tradition to cultivate our professional careers, deepen our friendships, and maintaining our family traditions and connections, all while innovating and creating new traditions.”
