Hair During The Civil Rights Movement Summary

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Hair has been an important aspect of Black society since early African history. According to The Gale Review, hair often represents one’s family history, social class, spirituality, and marital status. The Iowa Black History Museum stated that “It was believed that hair acted as a means of communicating with gods and spirits that passed through the hair to a person’s soul.” As well as that “hair was viewed as containing the person’s spirit and could be powerful enough to be used to cast spells, offer protection, add potency to medicine, or summon a mate.” These beliefs are able to convey the crucial role hair played in African society as a way of expressing one's identity within their society. Positive narratives associated with Black people’s hair …show more content…
Garrin, who received a Ph.D. from Iowa State and has produced various works about minorities and African American women, wrote “Hair and beauty choices of African American women during the Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1974” as her doctoral dissertation for the University. In this work, she argues that “the Civil Rights Movement had an effect on specific African American women’s hairstyles and experiences throughout their lives”. She concludes this through her various discussions with various women about how they began to separate beauty from whiteness, allowing them to not only society but also homogenous beauty standards. Garrin held discussions with women from various backgrounds, allowing for a wider range of conversations. Garrin discusses how hair was utilized for social progression by flaunting Afrocentric hair and features and public displays of Black pride connects with “Embracing natural hair: online spaces of self-definition, e-sisterhoods, and resistance” even though they affect different realms of life. This is because they both recognize that the utilization of certain hairstyles can affect personal rebuilding and resistance to unrealistic standards, in addition to opposition to harmful social