Beverly Johnson is talking about how it changed her life, and paved the way for other women of color.
It was August 1974. President Nixon resigned, baseball great Mickie Mantle was inducted into the Hall of Fame and for the first time, US citizens could own gold.
There was another first; a 21-year-old young woman from Buffalo unknowingly changed the face of fashion.
"I ran down the street to the nearest newsstand and there it was," said Beverly Johnson, a model.
1974, THE AUGUST COVER OF AMERICAN VOGUE
"Getting that cover means you have arrived as a model, you are at the top of your profession," Johnson said.
With this one photo, Beverly Johnson changed the face of fashion.
It was the first time the prestigious publication had ever featured a woman of color on the cover.
"It was a huge responsibility for a 21 year old, I thought, representing a whole nation of people that I didn't really know I was up for," Johnson said.
Eyewitness News caught up with the supermodel at the golf club at Chelsea Piers, she's a 10 handicap, loves to play, and even built her dream home on a course in California.
"It's very physical, very mental, it's very spiritual," Johnson said.
Modeling was something she kind of stumbled into.
She was an accomplished swimmer and wanted to be an attorney.
Then one summer on a whim, she stepped in front on the camera, and the rest is history.
"Beverly's moment made her a figure of glamour that existed far beyond fashion," said Sally Singer, the Creative Digital Director of Vogue.
Sally Singer says what vogue did 40 years ago was seen as a daring, but inevitable, choice and the right choice for the magazine.
"The impact is one that is beyond race, it's just how to grow up in this world and take your beauty as an asset that can mean so many other things," Singer said.
Johnson says after shooting that cover, she got mixed reactions from her peers but says it was a moment she, to this day, cherishes.
"It was a celebration but also there came a lot of disappointment in how I was received, but I was totally focused on being the biggest model in the world," Johnson said.
www.beverlyjohnson.com