IM

Age: 65-79 years

Occupation: Retired Teacher

The 1960s and 1970s brought the emergence of the “Black is Beautiful” movement. During this time prominent figures like Angela Davis encouraged women to wear their hair in large afros, which served as an empowering symbol of Black pride. It was also heavily politicized and seen as a radical choice.

“I was all for it!” said IM.

IM had a big afro in the 1970s, starting while she was in college, and she was proud of it.

“I was wearing the big afro [...] and I was enjoying my natural hair. It was a part of the movement. To have the afro said, ‘I identify with the movement, I identify with what we are doing as a people.’ That was a time that I relished, because it did show forward mobility, but it was a thing we stepped back from for a while,” said IM.

The movement did not last forever, and as more Black women began relaxing their hair in the late 1970s and 1980s, IM relaxed her hair as well.

“I fought it for a good while, but my peers were doing it, it was different, and it was pretty — what we perceived as pretty,” said IM.

Then, similar to many other Black women’s experiences, the perm caused IM’s hair to become brittle and her scalp to burn. She stopped relaxing her hair and went “back into the groove of natural hair.”

Today, IM is glad to see that many younger girls see natural hair as a part of themselves; fewer of them relax their hair.

“Our natural beauty is a wonderful thing,” she said, “and natural hair is of course a part of our natural beauty.”