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Naomi Winston didn’t know the moment she pulled up to a Louisiana park on a sunny day in 2019 that it would inspire a future business venture. That day, her godsister, who was about 5 or 6 years-old, refused to get out of the car.
The young girl said she didn’t want the sun to make her skin too dark.
Winston said the moment filled her with a trifecta of emotions: shock, grief and shame. She was taken aback by the way colorism, a form of discrimination based on skin tone, was so prevalent and affecting someone so young. Winston also had a moment of self-reflection and empathy because only when she went to an HBCU — Xavier University of Louisiana — did she start to feel connected and united with her Blackness.
Winston wanted to stop the negative connotations about being a Black girl for her godsister, so she created an affirmation coloring book, “Black Women are the Future,” and it sparked an entire line of six other coloring books. Winston aims to create “mirrors of representation” for Black and Brown kids and “coils of understanding” for children to educate themselves about various cultures through coloring books and other creative tools. Her coloring books join similar efforts on personal websites or outlets like Amazon.
“Treating kids like colorism doesn’t exist, you’re gonna grow up thinking it’s normal to feel that way,” she said.
Winston, who is now 22, started her own publishing company, Revolutionary Hearts Industries, at 18 thanks to a program in college. She named the line of coloring books The Creative Representation Empire. Greeted by brightly colored and illustrated covers, children are introduced to historical figures in some books like Arthur Ashe, whose storied career included being the first Black man to win the U.S. Open and Wimbledon.
In her goal-setting and affirmation workbook, “You are the Future,” children explore what they want to accomplish in a year’s time and are told they are kind, good and have a purpose. There’s a page to write down their dreams and draw who they want to be. In partnership with Flyte, a New Orleans nonprofit, Winston also completed a financial literacy coloring book that she recently put on her website.
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Winston said the goal isn’t for kids not to see color, but for them to see their differences and know that they are equal and “deserving of peace and love and respect” because of those differences.
There’s a deficit in literature, media and other materials in regard to not only representation but healthy representation, according to Janique Walker, a licensed professional counselor and assistant professor with Coppin State University. During formative years, birth to 8 years old, it is important to build a child’s self-esteem, and one way to do that is by exposing children to images, she added, and situations that are reflective of themselves, and the culture they experience every day.
“What that does is it helps allow them to feel a sense of validation in regard to what they see in the mirror and what they live on a daily basis. It allows them to know that their experiences are shared amongst other people,” she said.
Winston takes pride that a majority of books are community curated or collaborated. She asks people for real images that she then traces and illustrates using Procreate software on her computer. She has quite a few images of families and friends in certain books.
Winston majored in history in college (and graduated a year early), but she taught herself graphic design, web design and marketing. The coloring book content on her TikTok, she said, reeled in 25,000 followers in one year.
The journey hasn’t been all smooth sailing. She accidentally erased her first book twice, and people discount her and her vision because she is so young, Winston said. She also faced racist ridicule on Facebook in 2020 when she posted about her coloring books in a group about art.
She currently runs her business alone, in addition to having a full-time job as a marketing and communications analyst.
Winston is part of Venture for America, a two-year fellowship program that gives recent college graduates firsthand startup experience. Baltimore was one of her top cities to work in, and she was hired as a marketing and communications analyst for UpSurge Baltimore. She picked Baltimore because it reminded her most of New Orleans, Louisiana. Baltimore, she said, is the “place with the most fertile ground that the best version of herself can grow from.”
“I feel like here in Baltimore, it’s a lot more genuine. If someone says, they’re gonna help you, they’re gonna help you because they care or they’re gonna help you because they see the vision,” Winston said.
During her first few months in Baltimore, she created four more coloring books for the first quarter of 2023. She plans to release a new coloring book each month with a different theme.
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Originally, the coloring books were very long, she said, and a mentor advised her to shorten them and consider making a subscription model. Her books are available individually or in a bundle. You can preorder the books or pay for them a year out and get them sent at the beginning of the month or by quarter. The books and bundles range from $15 to $30.
Winston said one father reached out to her about his purchase of the book and how it resonated with his son, who was navigating growing up in an all-white neighborhood. Winston had a Zoom call with the boy and his father, a moment so worth it, she said, she didn’t care if she never sold another book afterward.
“It doesn’t matter how many books I sell. It doesn’t matter what I do, but the intent that this work is trying to have, it had and that’s what matters,” she said.
Winston said she’s excited for upcoming coloring books that talk about gender pronouns, gender identity, Black hair care and differently abled kids. Adults can look forward to an affirmation coloring book next year too.
She also plans to team up with different people to create a “holidays across cultures” book that introduces children to celebrations like Día de Los Muertos and Juneteenth. Winston hopes to build a team around her business, eventually pursue licensing and bulk buying subscriptions with schools and revamp her website, which she created in her dorm room at 2 a.m. when she was 19.
For her birthday in February, she’s releasing an e-book to teach people how to self-publish.
jasmine.vaughn@thebaltimorebanner.com
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Jasmine Vaughn-Hall is a neighborhood and community reporter at the Baltimore Banner, covering the people, challenges, and solutions within West Baltimore. Have a tip about something happening in your community? Taco recommendations? Call or text Jasmine at 443-608-8983.
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