title: Skin Deep: Inside the World of Black Fashion Models
author:  Barbara Summers 
description: Former model Summers presents a fascinating portrait of the black fashion world, chronicling the arrival of black designers and modeling agencies and the emergence of black supermodels on the runway. <BR>Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  The Homely Heroine  
    
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
  
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  # The Homely Heroine
  
  
  ### Edna Ferber
  
  
  
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  MILLIE WHITCOMB, of the fancy goods and notions, beckoned me with her finger.
  I had been standing at Kate O'Malley's counter, pretending to admire her new
  basket-weave suitings; but in reality reveling in her droll account of how, in
  the train coming up from Chicago, Mrs. Judge Porterfield had worn the negro
  porter's coat over her chilly shoulders in mistake for her husband's. Kate
  O'Malley can tell a funny story in a way to make the after-dinner pleasantries
  of a Washington diplomat sound like the clumsy jests told around the village
  grocery stove.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  "I wanted to tell you that I read that last story of yours," said Millie,
  sociably, when I had strolled over to her counter, "and I liked it, all but
  the her