Tyra Banks became the first Black woman to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 1996.
Banks shared the 1996 cover with model Valeria Mazza. The appearance marked an important moment for representation in a publication with a large international audience and helped establish Banks as one of the most recognizable models of the 1990s.
She had already achieved major modeling work for fashion and beauty brands, and the Sports Illustrated cover broadened her public profile beyond the traditional runway and editorial world. Banks later expanded into television, producing, business, and education.
This achievement is sometimes mixed up with Beverly Johnson’s 1974 American Vogue cover or with Banks’s later work in television. Banks also appeared on a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover in 2019, but the 1996 cover is the historic first referenced here.