No. 016 - Crown & Glory

For Black people, hair has never been “just hair.” It’s been map, message, identity, and crown. The world has policed it, but we have always made it shine.

In slavery, braids were survival. Oral traditions tell us that enslaved women braided intricate patterns into each other’s hair — not just for beauty, but as maps. Cornrows could mark fields, pathways, or codes to freedom. Slave owners may have dismissed it as “playing in their heads,” never knowing the braids carried escape routes stitched in plain sight.

In kitchens, we made do. With no products made for us, we used what we had: animal fats, used cooking grease, oils pressed from the fields. Hot combs heated on stoves turned Sunday mornings into rituals — pain, smoke, and pride mingled together as mothers pulled a comb through daughters’ hair, whispering “hold still.”

By the 1960s, hair became liberation. Afros rose like fists in the air, a natural halo of resistance. To wear an Afro was to declare “Black is beautiful,” even when schools and workplaces punished it.

Then came the chemical years. The 1970s and 80s ushered in perms, relaxers, and Jheri curls. Marketed as easier, “more manageable,” these styles promised assimilation but left burns, breakage, and long-term health concerns.

And then came the return. Beginning in the early 2000s, the natural hair movement blossomed online. Bloggers like Afrobella — one of the first digital voices for natural beauty — amplified and educated women about practices like the “big chop,” the process of cutting off chemically processed ends and starting fresh.

From blogs to YouTube to Instagram, a new generation reclaimed braids, twists, locs, and Bantu knots. The fight continues. For decades, schools, workplaces, and even the military banned natural styles.

In 2014, the Army rolled back restrictions on twists and braids, a step toward recognition. And since 2019, a wave of CROWN Act laws has swept across the country, making hair discrimination illegal in workplaces and schools. Through centuries, our hair has been policed, mocked, and legislated.

Yet it has also been a map to freedom, a stage for creativity, a signal of pride, and a testimony of survival. Because for us, hair is never just hair. It is crown and glory.

Take A Bite: What stories does your hair tell — through braids, presses, Afros, or curls — about where you come from and who you are?