Black Hair History Aveda Institute Nashville
1444 Europeans trade on the west coast of Africa with people wearing elaborate hairstyles, including locks, plaits and twists. Ori Yoruban for hair is highly esteemed. Prior to slavery African hair styling traditions served many functions. These roles include: •Medium of communication •Mark of initiation •State of mind •Religious beliefs •Marital and social status
1800s Without the combs and herbal treatments used in Africa, slaves rely on bacon grease, butter and kerosene as hair conditioners and cleaners. Lighter-skinned, straight-haired slaves command higher prices at auction than darker, more kinky-haired ones. Internalizing color consciousness, blacks promote the idea that blacks with dark skin and kinky hair are less attractive and worth less.
Fisk Graduates 1888, Nashville Tennessee
1865 Slavery ends, but whites look upon black women who style their hair like white women as well-adjusted. "Good" hair becomes a prerequisite for entering certain schools, churches, social groups and business networks.
1880 Metal hot combs, invented in 1845 by the French, are readily available in the United States. The comb is heated and used to press and temporarily straighten kinky hair. The hot comb was an invention developed in France as a way for women with coarse curly hair to achieve a fine straight look traditionally modeled by historical Egyptian women. However, it was Annie Malone also African American who first patented this tool, while her protĂŠgĂŠ and former worker, Madam CJ Walker aka Sarah Breedlove widened the teeth.
1920’s Patent for a Hot Comb
1900s Madame C.J. Walker develops a range of hair-care products for black hair. She popularizes the press-and-curl style. Some criticize her for encouraging black women to look white. She used her own image on her products during an era when few people were celebrating the beauty of black women. In 1910 Walker is featured in the Guiness Book of World Records as the first American female self-made millionaire.
1954 George E. Johnson launches the Johnson Products Empire with Ultra Wave Hair Culture, a "permanent" hair straightener for men that can be applied at home. A women's chemical straightener follows. Afro-Sheen, one of Johnson's best-known products, was released in the late 1960s,, one of Johnson's bestknown products, was released in the late 1960s, and during the 1970s he became the exclusive sponsor behind the nationally syndicated dance show Soul Train.
1962 Actress Cicely Tyson and not Bo Derek wears cornrows for the first time on the television drama "East Side/West Side."
1966 Model Pat Evans defies both black and white standards of beauty and shaves her head.
1968 Actress Diahann Carroll is the first black woman to star in a television network series, "Julia." She is a darker version of the all-American girl with straightened, curled hair.
1970 Angela Davis becomes an icon of Black Power with her large afro.
1971 Melba Tolliver is fired from the ABC affiliate in New York for wearing an afro while covering Tricia Nixon's wedding.
1977 The Jheri curl explodes on the black hair scene. Billed as a curly perm for blacks, the ultra-moist hairstyle lasts through the 1980s.
From Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America
1980 Model-actress Grace Jones sports her trademark flat-top fade.
1988 Spike Lee exposes the good hair/bad hair light-skinned/dark-skinned schism in black American in his movie "School Daze."
1989 Aunt Jemima gets a makeover. By replacing the kerchief-clad visual that reinforced a mammy archetype for nearly a century with a much more modern looking picture, Aunt Jemima was taken out of the servants quarters once and for all with a change of hairstyle. No longer a sanitized version of a racial caricature, this woman looks like she’s ready to handle her own affairs on her terms.
1997 Singer Erykah Badu poses on the cover of her debut album "Baduizm" with her head wrapped, ushering in an eclectic brand of Afrocentrism.
1999 "People" magazine names lock-topped Grammy award-winning artist Lauryn Hill one of its 50 Most Beautiful People.
2003 New Bedford, Mass. Dance teacher Amy Fernandes’ refuses to allow 4-year-old Amari Diaw to participate in her ballet dance recital along with the other children in her class who have been practicing for the exciting event because she requires the girls to pull back their hair into a bun. Amari’s mom put Amari’s very curly hair into cornrows and pulled it back into a bun. Fernandes, however, insisted that the braids be removed and that Amari’s hair be pulled back straight into a bun.
2006 Baltimore Police Department’s new, more rigid professional appearance standards prohibit such hairstyles as cornrows, dreadlocks and twists. These natural hairstyles are deemed to be “extreme” and a “fad” by the department.
2006 Black hair-care is a billion-dollar industry.
2012 When All-American cosmetics brand CoverGirl decided to make eclectic singer Janelle Monae and her supremely coiffed, natural pompadour one of its many recognizable spokesmodel faces, it signified a huge step in the right direction.
In the new millennium black women started to reacquaint themselves with their natural hair — in droves. More than a decade later, countless websites, bloggers and homegrown hair product companies have emerged as women with curly, kinky, coily and every hair type in between have taken the time to fall in love with their own special brand of natural beauty.
The END‌ but not really