Raleigh girl’s adorable Instagram history photos are a viral hit — even with royalty

At age 6, Avery Robinson has caught the world’s eye with a month-long game of historical dress-up — donning Olympic uniforms and astronaut suits to adorably mimic accomplished Black women.

The Raleigh first-grader wanted a Black History Month project that would both educate and delight, so she and her photographer mother Amber Robinson hit on their Instagram idea.

They would shoot portraits of Avery mimicking portraits of women who are household names — Michelle Obama and Rosa Parks — along with others less well-known but just as notable, such as Bessie Coleman, the first Black and Native American woman to hold a pilot’s license.

Their project succeeded enough that Avery’s Instagram series has 711 followers, and was recently reposted by Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle, whose portrait is included.

“We’re going to dress up as a famous Black person everyday,” her mother said, recalling their inspiration. “We quickly realized there’s a lot of planning involved in a project like that.”

First off, the research for such an undertaking would consume much of February, requiring an extended deadline into March, which is Women’s History Month.

Some of the portrait subjects came easily, but many more came by typing “first Black woman ...” into a search engine.

“Google did the rest,” Amber Robinson said.

Some of the less elaborate costumes came out of their own closets or by quizzing friends in Avery’s “COVID pod.” It didn’t take too much work to find Althea Gibson’s tennis skirt or a coat that Coretta Scott King might have worn.

What they couldn’t supply, Amazon filled in. Mother and daughter didn’t want to be wasteful, and they figure Dr. Mae Jemison’s NASA spacesuit will come in handy at later playtimes.

“Mom says all the time that women should be in places where history is made,” Avery posted alongside one portrait, “and I think Coretta Scott King would agree.”

But flipping through historic photos, other subjects proved trickier.

“I had to reel her back,” Avery’s mother recalled. “That looks really intricate. You know your mama can’t sew, right?”

And where to find a 1920s airplane, complete with propeller, suitable for Bessie Coleman? Way led onto way until Amber Robinson, a Raleigh native, connected with the Raleigh Flying Club, where she learned of a man selling just such a plane. Soon they were standing next to it at the Henderson-Oxford airport.

“Eyeballs huge as saucers,” her mother said.

Beyond the coveted royal repost, which came just as Meghan Markle was appearing in her Oprah Winfrey interview, the Robinsons were flooded with online likes. For a first-grader studying largely at home, hemmed in by the pandemic, she managed to reach far beyond her laptop.

“We’ve gotten so many messages from people saying, ‘I never knew about this woman. I learned something from a 6-year-old today,’ ” her mother said. “It’s just made her so proud.”