A Tribute to Black Hair Part 1

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH EVERYONE!

I’m just going to make it plain. I love being Black. I am so proud to be a Black woman and if given the chance to chose I would still be Black. Black is so much more than a race, Black is a soul. When tossing ideas of how I would like to creatively celebrate Black History Month in my mind while getting my son ready for bed I carefully ran a comb through his tiny, curls. I love my baby’s hair. From birth, it seemed like every strand had a mind and story of its own to tell on top of his happy head. He was born with a lot of hair and as the months went by that hair just kept growing, defying gravity and protocol. Sebastian’s hair simply did what it wanted to do and I loved it. Black hair is like that, never adhering to any standard but its own, defying the laws of gravity and Eurocentric strongholds. Black hair is expression, art, a masterpiece to its maker. For centuries, Black hair has been appropriated, disrespected, and even deemed unacceptable in the workplace and yet Black people still know its power, its presence, its connection to a people’s past. I just love Black hair.

Since the dawn of history itself, Africans have made crowns out of their own hair. Black hair was seen as a treasure, another medium of the majestic storyteller, and during the times of American enslavement often used as a literal map to freedom. When informed that they would soon be taken captive on ships to a strange land, African women would hide grains of rice between the braids of their loved ones hair to ensure they had food to eat. Talk about a resilient people. Centuries later I am here, a direct descendant of those who managed to press on through the oppression. I present this part 1 portion of my 3 part series to Black Hair’s past.

Black hair is beautiful.