Afro Hair History

The pick is the tool of choice for styling the Afro.

The Afro is a hairstyle closely associated with black culture in America. The natural, as it is often called, is a style in which people with long kinky textured hair use a comb known as a pick to pull the hair away from the head to extend it into a round shape that can be formed easily by the wearer. This style of hair has not been common among blacks or other races in the United States throughout history, but the style has been around for a long time.

Circassian Beauties

The first real glimpse of what became known as the Afro in America was in the circus sideshows of P.T. Barnum in the 1860s. Barnum introduced these female performers known as "the moss haired girls" who sported the do. Supposedly, Arabs had bought these women for use in their harems. The stories of the Circassian Beauties usually included an escape from the harems and the women finding a home in the show as a place of refuge, according to SideShowWorld.com.

The Circassian story is fiction, but the lore was widespread throughout the world for generations. Regardless, these shows resulted in the first Afro styles seen by many people in the United States.

Moving Away From Natural

Black people shipped from Africa were bought and sold as slaves by Caucasians in America. The inhumane treatment of the slaves was also paired with the general idea that this race was inferior to the white races of the world. The attitudes about white superiority led to many slaves and the blacks in later generations keeping their appearance in a way that displayed white preferences.

Braids and cornrows that were common in Africa, as well as the natural appearance of African hair, had become something to hide and be ashamed of. Black women would straighten hair and style it to look more like the women in white society. Men kept their hair very short and conservative in most cases.

Black Is Beautiful Movement

During the 1960s in America, the Civil Rights Movement was finally getting a foothold. Blacks were finally recognized as equal citizens, although the fight was far from over. The Black Is Beautiful Movement was an offshoot of the Civil Rights Movement. Those involved with the movement encouraged blacks to feel good about who they were and how they looked. For generations blacks had been told their natural appearance was undesirable and that looking more like white society was important to their acceptance. The movement convinced many blacks to stop straightening hair and bleaching skin. Instead their hair began to grow naturally and the Afro hairstyle became very popular.

Expanding the Fro

The Afro grew in popularity and size by the 1970s. The long hairstyles of the white "hippie" generation coincided with the growing out of black's hair and larger Afros that were worn by entertainers such as the Jackson Five, according to Afro Glitz Magazine's website.

Modern Day Fro

The Afro is still alive and well in America and the style is much the same it was in the beginning of the Black Is Beautiful Movement. Some wear it short, some long. However, it is no longer a political statement. With equality closer than ever between whites and blacks, it's just another hairstyle shared by not only black people, but also less commonly by whites, Latinos and more.

References

• Sideshow World: Circassian Beauties
• Essence: The History of Revolutionary Hair
• Afro Glitz Magazine: The Natural Hair Waves