A new docu-series interviews stars like Oprah Winfrey and Issa Rae to explore the history and shared experiences of Black hair care.
When Carri Twigg was a child, her father styled her hair. Every Sunday, he would wash Twigg’s mane in the kitchen sink, and every morning before school he would divide her unruly curls into six, slicked-back braids. The neighborhood knew whenever her father went out of town.
Her mother, whom Twigg described as a hippie, left her hair in a teased Afro or a chunky side ponytail most times. Although Black women undergo differing hair journeys, said Twigg, an executive producer of the new six-episode docu-series “The Hair Tales,” it is a shared experience, like the hiss of a hot comb or the banter in a beauty salon, that unites them.
“Hair is an external reflection of our interior world,” Twigg said.
Hosted by Tracee Ellis Ross, “The Hair Tales,” which debuted last week on Hulu and OWN, seeks to explore those experiences. Guests include Black women from across the worlds of media, entertainment and politics, among them Oprah Winfrey and Issa Rae (“Insecure”), as well as the rapper Chika, the actress Marsai Martin (“black-ish) and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, all of whom relate their lifelong journeys to self-acceptance by telling stories about their hair.
Michaela Angela Davis, the series’s creator, said she first came up with the idea several years ago after noticing that Black hair was an underexplored subject on TV. An activist, a former editor at Essence and a CNN contributor, she felt drained by all her reporting on Black calamity and death; the experience made her eager, she said, to tell stories of Black joy, resilience and beauty.
In 2016, Davis released a more modest video series, “Hair Tales,” in which notable figures like the actress Regina King and the Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors shared childhood anecdotes along with a range of their hairstyles. The series caught the attention of Tara Duncan, the president of Freeform and Disney’s Onyx Collective, and soon the production company Culture House, where Twigg is a founder and the head of development, was on board.
Together they pitched the idea to stars like Ross, Winfrey and others, who proved eager to join as well, Davis said. (Ross and Winfrey, who declined to comment for this article, are among the executive producers.)
“It would behoove America to know about us better,” Davis said. “And our hair is a way to get there.”
The resulting series expands greatly on the original, offering a wide range of discussions on beauty, styling techniques and the politics of hair, with insights from several scholars. It also includes candid conversations with real hair stylists and their clients in a mock Black beauty salon.
Referred to in the series as the “Black women’s country club,” salons are not only considered a sacred place for Black women to vent or be vulnerable, Davis noted; they also served as a communal space for activism during the Jim Crow era.
“‘The Hair Tales,’ to me, is really a testimony to the workers, to the Black women for generations who have been standing on their feet, their hands in our head, making money, sending us to school, holding communities down,” Davis said.
Twigg said she often jokes that her 16-year friendship with her stylist is her longest lasting relationship. But despite the deep trust she has placed in her beautician, it hasn’t stopped other people from offering opinions about her curly golden mane — a common experience for Black women. Relatives have encouraged her to get a relaxer. A white co-worker once said it looked as if she had stuck her finger in a light socket.
Twigg argued that as long as Black women are fired for their hairstyles and Black children are required to cut their dreadlocks for wrestling matches, people of color will lack autonomy. She hoped this series, produced largely by Black women, will help foster a safer and more liberated environment for Black people.
“It feels really beautiful,” Twigg said, “to be adding to the canon of Black women storytelling, to be adding to the canon of how we show up on the screen, to be giving concrete proof to our undeniable interconnectedness.”
Sometimes that sense of connectedness is strengthened by unexpected, and even painful, experience. In Episode 3, Pressley delves into the experience of delivering her 2018 victory speech as a newly elected congresswoman with braids. But she also describes her emotional journey with alopecia universalis, a condition that causes hair loss.
Rather than let it beat her, she said it was important to be up front about her new diagnosis, as she had been with her Senegalese twists.
“Alopecia is my superpower,” Pressley said in a recent phone interview. “And I boldly flaunt that as I occupy space, create space in the corridors of power and policy and decision making tables.”
Pressley is a co-sponsor of the federal Crown Act, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. (It was passed by the House but is currently stuck in the Senate; her state of Massachusetts became the 18th state to enact a state-level version in July). But there is more, she noted, to hair discrimination. Last year she co-sponsored a House bill that would provide coverage for wigs under Medicare.
“We know that there is a disparate and painful impact on Black girls beginning in our learning communities in our schools all the way up to pursuing employment,” Pressley said.
Hair discrimination wasn’t always an issue for Black women historically. In a phone interview, Riché J. Daniel Barnes, a University of Florida professor of anthropology and African American studies, said as there was no problem with Black women’s hair in pre-colonial Africa. But negative stereotypes arose as Black hair texture was compared to white beauty standards.
“Depending on the texture of the hair, no matter what the skin tone is, the hair texture tells the story of African descent and how that ends up being frowned upon,” Barnes said.
In turn, Black women have long utilized their kinky textures as a form of survival and resistance. During the trans-Atlantic slave trade, they wove seeds and messages into their cornrows, Barnes explained. In the late 1960s, all-natural hairstyles, in particular the Afro, became synonymous with protest and the Black Power movement.
Barnes added that it was important, however, to respect Black women’s hair choices, whether they choose to wear it natural or relaxed.
“I’m hopeful that this docu-series can penetrate some of the ongoing conversations, even within the Black community, about what it means to embrace our hair texture,” Barnes said.
Many Black women can trace their stories of self-acceptance by following the timeline of their hair journey. In Episode 5, Martin, 18, who became the youngest executive producer in Hollywood history a few years ago, has never relaxed her curls. But on “black-ish,” she played Diane, a snobbish twin with pin-straight hair.
“How can I be comfortable in talking about another hair journey when it’s not really tied to my own?” Martin said by phone. The docu-series highlights a “black-ish” episode called “Hair Day,” in which her character struggles with her decision to keep relaxing her hair.
Martin, who in the real world switches back and forth from box braids to ginger-colored hair, emphasized that no matter the style, young Black girls will always face challenges along with victories with their tresses. But from those challenges come important lessons.
“If you treat your hair with the same respect that you treat yourself, it’s going to be an easier ride,” Martin said.
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