African Hair Stories:
A Research Project

My journey of self-love began when I established my definition of beauty and became self-aware with other things around, than just my hair. This journey was not an overnight acceptance. It took time to overcome my low self-esteem, caused by trimming my hair. Accepting my trimmed hair was the beginning of discovering my true self. To help love me more, I had to understand my self-worth.

One Monday morning, just before assembly, the deputy headteacher called me to her office. She said and I quote, “we need you to stop covering your hair. It’s not part of the school uniform. Failure to do so will result to punishment.” Of course, I didn’t think my hijab was an issue, so I removed it for the day. The next day, I just wore it again because it was part of my routine.

I am a twenty-eight year old Muslim woman, and in Islam we are only allowed to show our hair to the men who cannot marry us, which for me is my father, my brothers, my kids and when I get married I will be allowed to show my hair to my husband as a part of my beauty. But please do not think that because I wear a hijab that my hair has no story. What you do not see, does not make it invisible or un-influential in my life. In Zanzibar, our hair can be complex, it can tell stories, and it can reveal our histories. Histories of an island culture and multi-ethnic families.

Growing up as a girl I was made to believe my hair enhanced my beauty. I was made to believe my hair was like an accessory to be worn during special occasions like Christmas and Easter. During these times, my mother applied hair relaxers on my hair in the name of relaxing my hair to make it longer and softer. I recall the cream burning my scalp and she used to say the longer it burns the better…

As an African American woman, I’ve had my own natural hair journey in the U.S. But I also started a different hair journey in Ghana when I first visited in 2009. In 2010 I had my first and last relaxer in a salon in Ghana. On many of my additional visits to Ghana I had my hair either cornrowed, braided or twisted with extensions— we all know how economical (for us) hair braiding is on the continent in comparison to the U.S.