SubscribeLoc-ed and loving my natural hair
I rescued my hair from the tyranny of the straightening comb for the first time in 1970. “You’re going to ruin your hair with all that picking,” warned my mother, a weekend beautician with lovely silky silver and black hair. But the closet revolutionary in me wanted to show solidarity with Angela Davis, the iconic black power activist of the late 60s and 70s.
I washed and plaited my hair and then combed it out so I could have the biggest Afro possible. It wasn’t nearly as large as Davis’s rounded lioness mane, but I loved the way my hair bounced as I walked around school. When I wore my Afro, I felt liberated, strong. That ignited a love affair with natural hair that has continued throughout my life.
After high school and into early adulthood, I alternated between pressing, relaxing and jheri-curling my hair (not the drippy kind). In the mid 1970s in Atlanta, where I was working as a reporter for a black newspaper, I had one of my I-can’t change-anything-else-so –I will-change- my-hair moments. I went to a beauty shop, as they were called then, to add a touch of auburn color to my permed hair.
I left the shop a copper penny red-head and embarrassed. I received several surprised looks and a few compliments. I could not wait for the color and the relaxer to grow out. That was the last time I put dye in my hair, even as it has prematurely grayed.
My hair adventures over the years have not been a quest for so-called “good hair” as documented in comedian Chris Rock’s movie by that name. I just wanted a style that I could replicate every morning with little effort. And I didn’t want to pay a lot money for it and have to sit under a dryer every two weeks. I also wanted a style the spoke consistently to who I was and continue to be –a black woman without pretense and with a strong racial heritage.
Natural hair became my joy once again, long after James Brown’s “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” faded as the anthem for many black women of my generation. In the late 1980s while many of my contemporaries were keeping up with the latest fashion hairdos, I cut mine and wore a short cropped Afro. Wash and wear, that was my thing. Later at the suggestion of a neighbor who was good with scissors, I moved to a box cut with a slight Grace Jones flair. I thought I looked hip and moderately edgy. Years later, my daughter saw pictures of me with that style and told me I looked too boyish. “I’m glad you stop wearing your hair like that,” she smirked.
When braids and cornrows came into vogue in the 1990s, I ventured into the world of fake hair that looked real. I grew my hair out so it would be long enough to braid the gray and black synthetic hair into it. I made sure that the length did not extend beyond my shoulders, which is where my hair length generally hung before I cut it. Self-conscious about going abruptly from one style to another, I wanted my new hair to look as natural as possible. For a time, I loved the look. But I hated having to sit long hours to have it done.
For as long as my college-age daughter has been on this earth, my hair has been in various natural states. When she as little, I was never particularly effective at doing her hair and going easy on her tender head. I never tried to press her hair, even though I inherited all of my mother’s straigthening combs and curling irons. I would plait my daughter’s hair and festoon it with ribbons and bows, or often put it in two Afro puffs. Later, I took her to have the same braiding shop I visited to have her hair cornrowed.
On a train ride to Savannah one summer, she asked to have her hair relaxed. I groaned inwardly. When I suggested that we find a natural style for her, she looked at me and replied: “That’s your style not mine.” While in Savannah, she got her hair relaxed that summer for her 13th birthday.
By ninth grade, she too discovered freedom in an Afro and has since worn her hair natural or on special occasions, pressed and curled.
Nine years ago, after negotiating and renegotiating with myself, I made a decision to grow locs. I had admired the style as it grew in popularity but wasn’t sure it was right for me. Finally, following the death of my brother Earl, a long time civil rights activist, I took the plunge and vowed to myself to grow my hair in locs until I finished the book I am writing on his life. A couple of years ago, I got the urge to cut my hair and wear it short again.
My husband, who likes my hair in locs, tried to discourage me. My loctian kept asking if I was sure, as I told her to stop retwisting my hair. Then a couple of male colleagues cut their locs, making me wish I had gone ahead and done mine. Finally, though, I realized I had to stop thinking about clipping off years of growth. I have a promise to keep and until then my locs will grow.
Fortunately, I have a creative loctian (don’t you just love how the language changes as we change) who can style my locs differently each time I get into the mood to change my hair.
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