The Peacock Chair and the Black Experience

New York Times

5 days ago

This chair cradles moms-to-be in maternity photos, frames Grammy-winning musicians beckoning from album covers, commemorates factory workers savoring a night out in glossy Polaroids. It has seated presidents and prisoners.
This chair — known as the rattan throne or the peacock — makes you sit up straight. It wants you to be seen.
Like wall art of Jesus, M.L.K. and J.F.K. and sofas zipped tight in plastic wrap, peacock chairs became hallmarks of Black American décor, starting in the late 1960s. The chair spoke to notions of identity and community that felt new and empowering at the time and were stoked by one of the most indelible photographs of the 20th century. In the photo published in 1968, Huey P. Newton, a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, beholds the viewer from a round-backed wicker chair with a rifle in one hand and a spear in the other.
Today, the chair kindles a shared instinct to cherish lives worth celebrating — of sharp-dressed grandparents and fly aunties, anniversaries and graduations — as old and new generations connect to it.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.