Kinky, relaxed, curled or plaited, African hair has been through it all
What you need to know:
- When American Actress Cicely Tyson appeared on national television with her natural hair in 1959, her unprecedented bold move, which was seen as an affirmation of racial pride, gave many other prominent Blacks the courage to follow suit.
- Since then, African-Americans have subjected their hair to all sorts of chemical treatment to straighten it. However, if recent sales figures are anything to go by, there second natural hair ‘revolution’ is here.
- Though the politics of African hair in the US is baffling, Kenya’s hair trends for many years now has been borrowing a lot from the US. Kenya has also experienced the hot comb, afro, curly kit, wigs, and weaves phases, and in recent years, the natural hair movement has caught on as well.
In 1959, African-American actress Cicely Tyson did something that had never been done before. She broke with Black community norms and wore non-straightened hair on national television. She sported an afro hairdo. No other Black woman had revealed her natural hair on the screen.
Soon after performing on television wearing her new hairstyle, Tyson auditioned for the series, 'East Side/West Side', a famously liberal show. She got the part of secretary Jane Foster and kept the natural hairdo. The Los Angeles Sentinel reported that there were reactions from beauticians across the United States, with complaints that Tyson was causing them to lose business. Black women who saw her television series began dumping their straightening combs (hot combs) at an alarming rate.
Tyson told the paper, “I was convinced that my black hair and features were God-given, and that the others were manufactured; made up to look like something else, something they weren’t. I knew it was just a matter of time before the whole situation took on its true colours.”
During that period, the natural state of African American hair — kinky and curly — was considered unkempt and unpresentable, and Black women were expected to straighten their hair. A straight, black hairdo was achieved by chemically altering it, wearing wigs or weaves, or blowing it out using a hot comb. A non-straightened black female hairstyle constituted a radical rejection, not only of Black community norms, but the culture in the dominant society, whose standard of beauty was straight or wavy hair, and not afro kinky.
BODILY AUTONOMY
Tyson kept the natural hair look and had another first when she appeared on the cover of Jet magazine in 1972 sporting cornrows. Tyson inspired the first wave of the natural hair movement and became a trailblazer in self-image and natural hair among women of colour.
Her bold actions coincided with the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements of the 1960s and 1970s in the US. During this period, Black hair was used to convey a message to the larger society – it signified racial pride. Famous political activist Angela Davis sported the afro hairstyle as a visual statement that signified strength, resilience, and a hint of rebellion. From then on, the afro became a fashion look that was associated with revolutionary ideas and a rejection of the dominant White culture.
The notion of the afro as a symbol of revolution hasn’t completely died. During the presidential elections in 2008, the elite New Yorker published on its cover Michelle Obama in an afro with a machine gun, touching fists with the then Senator Barack Obama. The cover sparked controversy and the New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick, explained that the cover was satirical and aimed to “hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama’s — both Obamas’ — past, and their politics.”
Last September, the US Army published revisions to Army Regulations 670-1, its policy for “Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms,” which included changes to female hairstyles. Unauthorised hairstyles include multiple braiding, twists and deadlocks. Though the new army grooming regulations are meant for women of all colours, options for Black women who would prefer to wear their natural hair were limited. This has elicited angry reactions among the Black community, with contributing writer at Salon Brittney Cooper calling it “structural and systematic regulation of black women’s bodies”.
“Forcing members of the military to chemically or manually straighten their hair is a violation of Black women’s bodily autonomy and right not to be exposed to harmful chemicals,” Cooper wrote in her column.
Though the politics of African hair in the US is baffling, Kenya’s hair trends for many years now has been borrowing a lot from the US. Kenya has also experienced the hot comb, afro, curly kit, wigs, and weaves phases, and in recent years, the natural hair movement has caught on as well.
TAMING NAPPY HAIR
While hair is a key racial signifier in the US, in Kenya, it has for a long time been associated with economic status. The poorer a woman is, the more likely she is to wear her hair natural. Moreover, kinky hair and dreadlocks are seen as unprofessional and are yet to be accepted in most corporate places in the country
The First Lady, Margaret Kenyatta, who keeps her hair short and simple — a teeny weeny afro — has, however, knocked down the notion that only poor women wear their hair natural.
The history of hair within the Black community in the US dates back to the time when Africans were carried across the Atlantic and taken to the western hemisphere as slaves. They lost their autonomy over their hair as their masters demanded that they “tame” their wild, wooly hair by making it straight. Nappy hair was a common term used to describe the natural state of Black hair. Long after the end of slavery, living in a world dominated by white people influenced Black people’s hair choices, and hair also became a key racial signifier.
Apart from the politics, Black hair in the US remains a defining measure for black standards of beauty and self-image. This has been evolving in recent years, as witnessed in 2012 when actress Viola Davis walked down the red carpet at the Oscars wearing her hair naturally. Lupita Nyong’o has graced several prominent fashion magazine covers wearing her natural hair since her debut on the Hollywood scene.
The situation of Black hair has always been a matter of numerous debates hinging on “good” hair versus “bad” hair. Entertainer Chris Rock recounts how his daughter came to him crying and asked, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?”
This prompted Rock to explore the issue of Black hair deeply and in 2009, his comic film, Good Air, was released. Rock’s documentary covers a journey that took him from the hair salons of New York City to a hair show in Atlanta, from Indian hair-shaving ceremonies to the Beverly Hills salons that buy the Indian hair. The film explores the issue of Black women and their hair with a light touch.
Embracing Black hair as it naturally grows is becoming common, and it seems it will only be matter of time before it takes a firm hold both in the US and in Kenya. In 2013, US consumer research group Mintel reported that hair relaxer sales dropped from $206million (Sh20.4bn) in 2008 to $152million (Sh15004bn), while sales of products to maintain natural hair were increasing.
Since the late 2000s, there has been an interest not only in the historical origins of many African American hairstyles, but also more ways to style black hair. Much has changed in the second era of the natural hair movement; much more has remained the same. Whereas the afro was one of the few hairstyle options during the 1960s and 1970s, the second era of women “going natural” has seen a wide variety of natural hairstyles.
GOOD HAIR
This has also led to an increased number of “natural hair” blogs, made mostly by women of African descent. Unlike the first era of the natural hair movement, which was mostly inspired by political activists and entertainers, the second wave is mostly propagated by ordinary women of colour. This subculture, thanks to technology such as social media platforms, is growing fast. Legions of like-minded women interact through blogs, videos, and Facebook groups and support each other through the natural hair journey. Often, these forums record hair transition stories, which is the process of growing out their chemically straightened hair and learning how to take care and style their hair in its natural state.
In debates about this change of hair preference, the chemical manipulation of afro kinky hair to make it straight has been described as white supremacy programming and brainwashing Black people to make their hair look like other people’s hair. But others disagree with this school of thought. They say curly, permed, relaxed hair, as well as weaves and wigs are not white imitations, but a variety of convenient styling options.
The art of hairdos, hairstyles, haircuts has always been practised by people from all corners of the world since ancient times: Egyptians plaiting with intricate beading and the thick, black hair straight with fringes, the West African braid, the ancient Greek hairstyles that involved sprinkling gold powder onto the hair, the Romans’ use of false hairpieces to make their hair thicker or longer. In all these societies, hair choices have evolved over the years.
The straight, wavy, curly hairdo among Africans as a result of contact with new cultures shouldn’t be whitened with unnecessary negativity. In fact, weaves were not invented for Black women. White women, especially British and French, wore wigs and extensions all throughout the 1700 and 1800s and longer.
In an interview with the Reuters, Chris Rock said, “Good hair is whatever hair you are comfortable with. Whatever a woman likes, whatever makes you happy, makes you feel sexy and powerful and all those things, that’s good hair.”