Tom Joyner Cruise 2012: ’70s Night

NASSAU, Bahamas – The Tom Joyner Fantastic Voyage is the place where the insane and ridiculous is celebrated, exalted and encapsulated for posterity.

Even cultural anthropologists have a difficult time explaining eloquently how the decade of the 70s came to be — and why urbanites return to it again and again like an ex-fling. And no one can explain the outfits that Tom Joyner cruisers flossed on the promenade of the Royal Caribbean.

Seventies Night was a blissful orgy of blinding color schemes, polyester, Afros, bell bottoms, platform shoes, pimp cups, canes, cash and gold grills. All you can do it look on in amazement at what some folk put together and had the audacity to parade down the center of the Soul Train line that Tom Joyner and J. Anthony Brown led to raucous cheers (RIP, Don Cornelius).

Want to see vintage 70s captured in all its unabashed glory? Turn the page and have a peep.

–terry shropshire