Ever since I've been a little girl, my hair has been important to me. I would suffer through scalps burns and scabs from relaxer to hot comb ear burns to make sure my hair was straight and neat. "Beauty is pain" is what my mom would say to me when the perm was burning my scalp. And I went through the pain for my hair. My hair was apart of my identity.

It's a black girl's hair experience.

One morning before school, my mom decided it was a great idea to cut the front of my hair into bangs. I was devastated. I watched the strands of hair fall and tears dropped from my face. In the background, I could hear my mother say something about hair breakage but my 7-year-old brain could not register what that meant. I just knew she was cutting my hair. Years would continue and my mother, "the hairdresser" would do my hair in various styles.  My hair represented every fad and style in that time period. But it wasn’t too grown (as older black women love to say.)

Y'all remember finger waves? That was my mother's hairstyle speciality. I watched my aunts, cousins and other women line up in my mother's home salon to get finger waves like people line up for Jordans.

Photo from Unruly

Or the French roll? The french roll had an unhealthy hold on black women! Oh please don't bring the French roll back! 

Photo from LipstickAlley

I had twist updos, roller set curls, mohawk curls, braids, sock buns and "rinse" dye. My favorite hairstyle was my permed wrap. I would wrap my hair the night before and strategically comb out the wrap the morning after. I would carry the comb in my back pocket during school and comb my wrap throughout the school day. The girls at school would compliment  my wrap and the boys would try to put their hands on my hair to mess it up. Middle school chronicles.

Apart of black hair was black hair magazines. I studied every hair magazine my mother had like it was a quiz. I ripped out the pages of inspiration and the next hairstyle I wanted to try. The black hair magazine subscription was essential to black womanhood. 

Visiting the Black Hair Museum was monumental and brought back nostalgia feeling of being a little girl sitting my mom's salon chair. Or listening to the gossip of my mother's clients. Or my first salon experience when I was 15, nervous about letting a different woman do my hair.

Black hair has been essential to the growth of black culture and identity of black women. Black women collectively will say her hair is apart of her walk, confidence and sass. Black hair is creative, innovative, raw, liberating and versatile. Black hair is a billion-dollar business. Black hair is professional. Experience black beauty and hair at the Black Hair Museum in Atlanta and DMV.

Here’s my favorite installations: