The Impact Hair has on the Black Community.

Just before bedtime, a Black woman sections her hair into 15 different parts and can carefully twists each section before placing a silk bonnet over her head. The next morning, another firmly ties her daughter’s afro-puffs with multi-colored hair ties just in time for school.

Over the weekend, one woman spends over two hours underneath the shower head washing, conditioning, and detangling her hair while another sits in a salon chair for six hours, her hairstylist braiding small sections of her hair over her shoulder and down her back.

“Too many times when I’ve brought up the topic of natural hair, a White woman would tell me that she’s natural as well,” said YouTuber Kat Blaque in her vlog. “Although she technically is, that’s not what we’re talking about.”

Natural hair refers to a Black person’s hair without the use of chemical relaxers or straighteners that alters the hair’s texture, and the refusal of using these chemical products created the rebirth of the Natural Hair Movement in the early 2000s.

“When you force a group of marginalized people to do certain things to their hair that could be harmful to them, of course we’re going to fight it,” said Blaque.

There are a variety of ways that Black women wear their hair, some wear theirs in box braids and cornrows while others wear afros or dreadlocks. Each style is unique and although it sometimes requires a few hours to style, Black women still continue to wear and celebrate their natural hair.

Sometimes, the celebration can be difficult when dealing with workplace rules, dress codes, and social stigma surrounding natural hair.

Discrimination at the Workplace

In September of 2016, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that employers have the right to ban dreadlocks in the work place.

Back in 2010, Chastity Jones, a Black woman who had recently been hired by Catastrophe Management Solutions (CMS) in Mobile, Alabama was told by a human resources manager to get rid of her locks because they “tend to get messy,” according to court documents.

When Jones refused, the company withdrew the job offer.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit against CMS, arguing that dreadlocks are a "racial characteristic" and have been historically used to stereotype African-Americans. The EEOC argued that to claim dreadlocks don’t fit a grooming policy is essentially discriminatory because of these stereotypes.

The court of appeals disagreed. In ruling against Jones, the court made a legal distinction between hair texture and hair style.

The example provided was that discrimination based on the texture of black hair (an unchallengeable characteristic) is prohibited, while refusing to employ someone based on their black hairstyle (something you can change) is not.

Judge Adalberto Jordan wrote in the decision, “We recognize that the distinction between immutable and mutable characteristics of race can sometimes be a fine (and difficult) one, but it is a line that courts have drawn.”

Courtney Matthews, a hair care consultant and owner of CCM Hair Studios in Brooklyn, was outraged when he heard about the outcome of the court case. Matthews has been working with natural hair, specifically dreadlocks, for over 10 years now.

“The style of your hair shouldn’t have any bearing on how well you are able to do your job,” said Matthews. “Things like this happen time and time again, and we as Black people really need to stand up and say, ‘no, we’re not going to let this happen’ and wear our hair the way we want to.”

This isn’t the first case of natural hair discourse surrounding the workplace. Back in November of 2012, meteorologist Rhonda Lee was fired from KTBS 3 News in Shreveport, Louisiana after responding to comments on the news channel’s Facebook page about her natural hair.

One of the comments on the Facebook page said: “The black lady that does the news is a very nice lady. The only thing is that she needs to wear a wig or grow some hair. I’m not sure if she is a cancer patient, but still it’s not something myself that I think looks good on TV.”

Lee responded to the comment, saying that she was very proud of her African-American ancestry and explain that although many black women use straightening agents to achieve a more "European grade of hair," she didn't find it necessary.

"Conforming to one standard isn't what being American is about and I hope you can embrace that," Lee wrote.

In March of 2016, Akua Agyemfra, a waitress at Astor’s Bar and Grill in Toronto, quit her job because she felt that she was discriminated against because of her natural hair. Agyemfra told CBC News that she wore extensions during her interview and first two training shifts, but took them out before her third.

Agyenfra said her natural hair did not comply with the restaurant’s “straight hair policy” and she was told by the assistant manager, “'I’m sorry to have to let you go home.'”

“A lot of Caucasian people don’t really understand that my hair doesn’t go down,” Agyemfra told CBC, and explained that Black people’s hair grows upwards.

Discrimination of natural hair has also been creeping up in public schools.

Back in July of 2016, Attica Woodson Scott‏ posted pictures on Twitter of the dress code that Butler Traditional High School in Louisville, Kentucky issued home. It prevented students from wearing dreadlocks, cornrows, and twists and said that hairstyles that are “extreme, distracting, or attention-getting” would not be permitted.

Because of outraged parents, Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Donna Hargens lifted the ban on the JCPS website, saying that they would ensure that their policies would not “infringe on the many cultures embraced across our school district."

In Milwaukee, a teacher cut off one of the braids of her 7-year-old student Lamaya Cammon because she was frustrated with the way Lamaya was twirling her finger around one of her braids according to the Milwaukee Community Journal.

The teacher called Lamaya to the front of the class where she took hold of one of Lamaya’s braids and cut it off in front of the entire class.

“I went to my desk and cried. And they was laughing,” said Lamaya. “She threw it away and she said, ‘Now what you gonna go home and say to your momma?’ And I said, ‘That you cut off my hair.'”

Lamaya’s mother, Hellen Cunningham, was furious when she learned about what happened to her daughter, even after the teacher apologized, and questioned why the teacher hadn’t lost her job.

Natural Hair and the Civil Rights Movement

“What’s happening to these babies now and to the grown folk at work is institutional racism, and it’s been going on in the 50s and 60s too,” said Nora Glenn, 64, a client of Matthews who lives in Brooklyn. She experienced her hair discrimination during segregation. “We were separate, but we sure were not equal.”

Afros are no new concept to those who wear their natural hair. Women like civil rights activist Angela Davis and author Toni Morrison wearing their ‘fros in the late 60s and 70s.

Afros had become a symbol of power and a political statement because of the Black Panther Party, but the trend soon became popular with students, other civil rights activists, and even on television.

According to Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps in their book “Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America,” between 1946 and 1966, Negroes and colored folk “became Black people.”

This new Black-identified visual aesthetic, as Byrd and Tharps put it, was how a large number of Black people found an alternative to straight hair and were able to celebrate it.Even Black men were encouraged to wear their natural hair instead of “conking,” which was a term for the way for men to straighten their hair from the 1920s to the 1960s, and was very popular.

While some Black and White alike people saw the afro as something that carried militant connotations, the afro for Black people was about identity and being proud in their own skin. Even so, people with afros were still targeted by police, who would arrest them and bring them in for questioning.

In her article published by the University of Chicago Press, “Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia,” Davis talked about how the pictures that were taken of her seemed to affect the way others viewed her, especially other black women.

“While the most obvious evidence of their power was the part they played in structuring people’s opinions about me as a ‘fugitive’ and a political prisoner, their more subtle and wide-ranging effect was the way they served as generic images of black women who wore their hair ‘natural,’” Davis wrote.

She went on to say that many women like herself were being harassed and arrested by the police and the FBI during the time she spent underground. One light-skinned woman even told her that she’d hoped to serve as a decoy while being photographed because of the way Black women were portrayed in the media.

“Consequently, the photographs identified vast numbers of my Black female contemporaries who wore naturals (whether light- or dark-skinned) as targets of repression,” she wrote. “This is the hidden historical content that lurks behind the continued association of my name with the Afro.”

Women like Glenn remember being inspired by Davis and her natural hair.

“Me and my friends would walk around with our fros around school, and we felt good. You know, because we felt empowered,” said Glenn with a raise of her fist. “For me, seeing Angela Davis rocking her hair made me feel like I could do it too. There was a sense of confidence that I had gained.”

Originally from Virginia, Glenn never attended school with a white person, nor did she have a white neighbor until she came to New York City. She felt that shift made her want to wear her natural hair even more.

Glenn said that for once she didn’t feel envious of her friends who had lighter skin or straight hair – “good hair” or “Indian hair” as some people called it. She embraced her darker skin and kinky hair just like many women in the late 50s through the 60s.

Natural hair was making such a big statement at the time, but a few things between the 80s and early 2000s caused the movement to falter, and it wasn’t just Black women with afros being targeted by the police.

Styles like the Jheri curl and the S-curls, styles that were applied using relaxers to create looser curs, were becoming more popular in the 80s and 90s, which gave people looser curls and wavy hair. The natural coils of Black hair just weren’t as popular anymore.

Glenn attributes the end of the Black Panthers in 1982 to one of the reasons for the decline, as well as the afro becoming popular with those who were not Black.

For her, the meaning of the afro and everything it stood for wasn’t the same when White people were wearing it.

“We were harassed about this stuff. Called aggressive and all that, but then White people can put on wigs that look like our hair and all of a sudden, it’s okay,” said Glenn. “And were in, what, 2017 now? And it’s still happening. It’s the same stuff, different year.”

Hair Care Products and Representation

It’s no secret that Black people, specifically Black women, struggle to find hair care products that not only represent them, but have ingredients that are safe for their hair.

“It’s like you’re at a crossroad,” said Tamera Barden, 21, who has been natural for four years now. “You see products on TV. But there are no Black women in sight, so you feel like it’s not for you. Then you go into the store and see these black women on the products and you smile before you realize this stuff is just as unhealthy for your hair as the stuff on TV. It’s not for us.”

Barden said that she needs to be extra careful with what she uses in her hair now that she is pregnant.

Hair care products like Carol’s Daughter, Miss Jessie’s, and Camille Rose Naturals pride themselves on being healthy for being for Black women as well as safe for natural hair because of their ingredients.

Shea Moisture, a company with a popular line of hair care products for Black women who are natural, claimed to be for Black women as well, but came under fire last week Monday for one of their promotional videos.

The video was posted on Facebook, and sent a message out that said “break free from hair hate” as a light-skinned Black woman with looser curls talked about the struggles she faced growing up with her natural hair.

Then the video cut to a White woman with straight blonde hair who talked about looking in the mirror some days and not knowing what to do with her hair.

Another White woman with red hair said that she always felt pressured to dye her hair blonde.

Many of Shea Moisture’s customers, which are mostly Black women, felt that this video made light of their hair struggles and were outraged by the lack of representation of women with coils kinky hair, which was Shea Moisture’s intended target.

Ruth-Ann Small, 21, who has been natural for several years, felt disrespected and insulted by the video, especially because she didn't know she could even style her own natural hair until she was in high school.

“It’s strange to me how they could equate the discrimination of hair like mine to a woman with straight blonde hair, who has no problem getting a job with her kind of hair,” she said. “And then they have the nerve to talk about hair hate. Your hair has never been hated, it’s been the beauty standard that Black women like me was told to meet.”

The CEO of Shea Moisture, Richelieu Dennis, said in an interview on The Breakfast Club, a hiphop radio show, that the video was supposed to highlight the challenges that all women faced, and celebrate all types of hair.

“We weren’t trying to talk about cultural issues or struggle issues. That’s not what the intent was,” said Dennis. “The intent was ‘Hey, you’ve got these different issues and you’ve been dealing with them. Let’s have a conversation about them and let’s put them out there.’”

He then went on to say that his family-owned company, started by his grandmother who sold shea butter across the Sierra Leone countryside almost 100 years ago, has has always stood for women of color, and would continue to do so.

Some Black women took the apology, feeling that Shea Moisture was very sincere and others didn’t see the big deal in it.

There is still a large number of Shea Moisture consumers who are not willing to accept the apology, even after the video was pulled offline.

Toni Duclottni, an actress who appeared in “Straight Outta Compton,” felt that the message Shea Moisture was trying to get out didn’t come out right.

“You’re a company that caters to predominantly Black women, and I say this because you find their products in ethnic, urban areas. You know your demographic,” said Duclottni on her vlog. “To come out with a commercial that does not cater to the majority of the people who are buying it, I find it a little jacked up.”

For Small, situations like this show her that Black women can’t have much of anything to themselves.

“We’re hardly ever catered to. When you see people unlike yourself on screen, it hurts. And for a company to say they’re for you, but turn around and include people who are already catered to with everything else, yes, I do see why so many women were offended by this,” said Small.

Pricey Hair Care Products and the Dangers of Chemicals

Perms and relaxers continue to be used by Black women, who know all too well the types of chemicals that go into in them and why they damage the hair.

Relaxers that use chemicals like alkaline sodium hydroxide (also referred to as lye, which can be found in drain cleaners) are able to change the structure of the hair shaft, creating straight hair.

These hair relaxer products are a white, creamy substance that comes in a plastic container. It’s applied onto the base of the hair, then washed out after application so that the new hair growth can straighten out like the rest of the hair.

The process can cause the hair to grow brittle and fall out and the scalp can suffer chemical burns if it is exposed to the relaxer for too long.

Because people were aware of the dangers the formulas in these relaxers, many stopped using them, forcing companies to create a “no lye” formula. The formula, although weaker, can still irritate the skin and scalp.

Many women have switched over to more natural products for their hair, some products that claim to be natural still use ingredients that don’t promote healthy hair growth.

According to the official Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act's website, it is not required that cosmetic products and ingredients be approved by the FDA before they go on the market, with the exception of color additives that are not intended for use as coal tar hair dyes.

With this knowledge, that gives Cheriece Codrington more reason to check the back of shampoos and conditioners before she purchases them.

“I always check the ingredients on the back of my products because I want to make sure what I’m putting in my hair is safe,” said Codrington. “Some people don’t do that. They just buy blindly and hope for the best. What you put into your hair is just as important as what you put into your body.”

Codrington also said that going to a salon or buying tons of products can get pricey.

A report issued by an organization called Black Women for Wellness did a five-year study on the beauty industry for Back women. They found that Black women in America spend around $9 billion on beauty products alone, which is twice as much as any other ethnic group.

The report states that many of the products marketed to and used by Black women are rarely researched for toxic health consequences. Black hair products are some of the most toxic beauty products on the market.

When the hair care professionals interviewed in this report were asked what was most important to them before purchasing a product.

Forty-two percent of the stylists who were surveyed said that product ingredients and how well a product worked was most important before purchasing a product. Fifteen percent of the stylists said that price was the most important factor when purchasing products.

The African-American Consumer report published by National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) says that retailers are urged to stock their shelves with “assorted Ethnic Hair and Beauty Aids products” because it is a popular category for African-Americans.

These prices are one of the reasons why Codrington opts to create her own blend of shea butter.

“It costs less and I know exactly what’s going in it, so I don’t have to worry about who’s putting what in my products,” she said.

Celebrating Natural Hair

Through the discrimination and the fight to wear their hair the way it naturally grows out of their heads, Black people continue to inspire each other from the creative ways they style their hair to the spiritual connections they have with it.

Codrington was inspired by the star of BET’s new series “Rebel” Danielle Moné Truitt, who wears different types of natural hairstyles that Codrington wasn’t sure she would be able to pull off.

Small says that she was inspired by women on Youtube who put up online tutorials of how to do their natural hair before she had gone natural herself.

Glenn, who had been inspired by Angela Davis, finds herself inspired by the women in her church who believe that their hair has a type of energy to it.

After Matthews finishes up a client’s hair, he says that he feels elated when his customers look into the mirror and smile to themselves.

“It’s the way they kind of touch their hair a little, then turn to you and thank you for a job well done from the bottom of their heart,” said Matthews. “It makes me feel happy. That I’ve done my job as a stylist – to give confidence to the women that sit in my chair.”

A common thread found in the stories of those who have gone natural is confidence and empowerment, people who are comfortable in their hair and their skin.