Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A Warrior of Light By Lauri Lyons As a person born after the signing of the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, I was not a witness to the loud calls for justice that took place in the United States during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Like many generations that followed, my knowledge of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. primarily came from what I was taught in school and from archival film clips of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington. With that rote knowledge, I, like many others felt that I had a good idea of who Dr. King was and what he stood for. My idea of him was a noble, calm, and well-spoken civil rights leader. Indeed, he was all of those things, but he was also so much more. He was fire, brimstone, determination, strategy, and human. Reflecting on his life and career, he was an individual who willingly became a foot soldier for equality, during a Vesuvian explosion of cultural, political and social change. This period of time in American history could easily be classified as the rebirth of a nation. MLK’s most daring acts of faith were his strategical acts of nonviolence. His stance to fight physical power with soul power was and still is, a radical choice of weapons. At a time when black people were not legally guaranteed basic human rights in the United States, Martin Luther King, Jr. had the audacity to demand that America be true to its commitments on paper, as was written in the Declaration of Independence and...
A Peace Treaty Fashion Without Borders Fashion designer Dana Arbib, shares her global perspectives on life and style. Interview by Lauri Lyons What inspired you to start A Peace Treaty? Dana Arbib: I studied graphic design at Parson’s. I was working in a lot of different fields of design. I was consulting at Sotheby’s, and freelancing at DKNY. I always liked sketching, and I realized that I love drawing patterns, it’s so much fun, it’s so easy, it’s so creative. What is your cultural background? I’m middle-eastern. My dad’s from Tripoli, Libya. He grew up in Tripoli, but he went to school in Italy because Libya was an Italian colony at that time. So he’s kind of a blend of Italian, and Arab, but Jewish. His generation is pretty much the last of the Libyan Jews. Once his generation passes away, it’s kind of gone. I’m from Israel. So we’re kind of like Arab Jews in a way, which is complicated. How has your culture influenced your design aesthetic? I grew up with a lot of scarves, a lot of caftans, that kind of style. I had seen that when the company started, there was a trend in the market for kofia scarves. I realized there was a gap in the market for mid-level price scarves. That’s when I said “Let’s do a scarf company”. I’m constantly researching textiles from all over the world. It’s kind of an obsession of mine. I have a huge database in my head of references from Africa, Asia, Scandinavia, Japan, from everywhere. I’m traveling constantly. My dad, for a living, has a humanitarian background. He does a lot of...
