By Lady Gray, May 26, 2015 — HAIR! It has always been a sensitive subject for African American women. When I was little, I remember being so proud of my pigtails. I didn’t have long plats but I was pleased with the fact that they touched my shoulders. I remember sitting on the floor between my mother’s legs as she did my hair. She would dip the comb in water and part my hair, apply Dixie Peach or Royal Crown Hair Pomade to my scalp and brush it through my hair. Then she would grab 3 strands and braid my hair. Sometimes, I would have individual braids with barrettes. Other times she would connect them, one into another and I would end up with two long ones. I did not mind when she did that because I was not “tender-headed.” That means, it really hurt if you ran a comb through the person’s hair. Even though that wasn’t me, I hated certain Saturday afternoons.
Saturday afternoon was when my mother would shampoo my hair and after it dried, I would get a Press and Curl. I remember sitting next to the stove looking at the comb and curling irons like it was yesterday. I would sit there, completely still with the jar of hair pomade in my hand. My mom would put some of it on her finger, apply it to my hair and scalp and ease the hot comb through my hair. I can still feel the he-e-eat and hear the SSsssss as the comb went from root to tip, section by section and then, she would go back and curl it.
It was not all bad. Sometimes my mother would send me to my grandmother’s sister’s house. My Aunt Iola made her living as a hairdresser and even after she retired, she still did Press and Curls and Perms for family members. I did not mind so much when she did it. My aunt was a master with the comb and the curlers. She would put a comb between my scalp and the hot comb and even blow gently so I did not feel so much heat on my scalp and, the curlers?! I loved watching her twirl them to cool them down before she put them to my hair. She was quick. She always gave me bangs. I liked bangs across my forehead. I thought bangs made me look like the little girls I saw on TV.
I had heard the terms “good hair,” “bad hair,” “nappy hair” and even “unruly kitchen” for many years growing up and considered it a normal thing to “get my hair done” every weekend. Things changed during high school and college. I heard the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Malcolm X helped me accept me the way I am and love myself and Dr. King helped me believe that I deserved good things in life just like anyone else and I had the right to go after them.
My second semester at Clark College in Atlanta Georgia, I got a roommate from Brooklyn, New York. April of 1969, there was a wind of change in the air. I remember the Saturday my roommate returned from a Black Power rally, washed her hair and picked it out. When she was finished, it looked like a big Afro-bubble and on her, it looked good. She looked at me as she was applying the curl activator and said, “Okay Roomie, what are you waiting for?” Good question. All I could think of was my parents. My dad, who was paying my tuition would have a fit and my mom, who would probably think I lost my mind. So off I went, yet again to get my hair pressed and curled. I didn’t get perms. I had it done once while in ninth grade. It was a bad job. My hair came out so bad, I spent the rest of the school year wearing a wig. I never got another perm after that experience.
Spring Break, I was preparing to go home and went for my usual treatment at the hairdresser. It was a new girl but I had gone to the same place all during the school year. Ironically, I had listened to a speech by Malcolm X the night before, I had a discussion with the guy I was dating. He was giving his opinion about a speech he had heard. During this particular speech, Minister Malcolm was asking why we try so hard to fit someone else’s standards of beauty when we would never really be accepted no matter what we did. My mind kept replaying the word FLAWED and my heart was asking “What’s wrong with this picture?” So there I was sitting in a chair again, letting someone do things to my hair to give it an appearance and a texture it did not naturally have. NATURAL! The word jumped into my head in big bold letters and at that same moment, the top part of the straightening comb came off the handle and dropped down my back! I jumped out of the beautician’s chair and shook myself until the comb fell to the floor. Then, I snatched off the styling cape and ran back to the campus and my dorm room. My roommate was sitting by the window watching some campus activity when I burst in and said two words, “Do it!” She smiled and grabbed the shampoo. She gave me a high-five and said, “Right On!”
An hour and a half later, I emerged from the shampoo, a vinegar rinse, the conditioner, and curl activator. After a few snips with the scissors to give me a shape-up, my roommate handed me a mirror. I did something I haven’t done in a while, I really looked at me and I smiled. A new me, the real me walked across campus to the dining hall that evening and the new me went home for Spring Break. My dad was surprised but instead of voicing any disappointment or disapproval, he defended me to all the older members of the family who wanted to voice their negative opinion. My mom amazed me too. By the time I left to go back to college, my mom was sporting the natural look too!
Maybe I am not my hair but it is a part of what says who I am. God made it the texture, the thickness, and color that it is and however I wear it is all good. I will cherish the day a friend took me to hear Dr. Maya Angelou speak. She said, “People don’t have naps. Rugs have naps. What we have is exceptionally curly hair!” That statement will resonate within me for the rest of my life, so however I walk, talk, look, act or believe; my best day was when I learned that it is okay to be me.
