Civil Rights

Cornrows were not the only style that African Americans had “rediscovered” in Africa. But while adults' hair was often straightened, children’s hair continued to be a place where the cornrow tradition could be carried on: "Little girls received their first simple pigtails or cornrows at Mother's or Grandmother's knee. Brushing, oiling, and braiding the hair encouraged it to grow." (Peters pp. 9) In the 1950s, the revolts against colonialism in Africa and the stirrings of a new cultural politics in America inspired alternatives to straightening techniques. Black artists, scholars, and activists began to look toward African styles. One of the first to make a trip to Africa was artist John Biggers. He realized that the cornrow styles he had seen growing up in North Carolina were actually survivals of African tradition. South African women in the 1950s were wearing a natural or “bush” style. Jackson (2000) notes that this style begins to appear among Black artists, intellectuals and activists in the mid-1950s. To stress its cultural origins, they called it an “Afro.” Byrd and Tharps describe how Odetta, Nina Simone, Abby Lincoln and others “embraced natural hair and traditional African cornrowed styles” in this era (p. 54). The Afro makes an appearance in Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play “A Raisin in the Sun.” Singer Miriam Makeba also gave many Americans their first look at the beauty of African hairstyles.