Over the weekend, at a street festival in Brooklyn N.Y., an older gentleman walked up to me and a friend (who also has natural hair) and handed us fliers about a social-justice meeting. While handing them to us, he said, “For my real sistas; I know you two are down for the cause.” I can…

Do a Google image search for “dreadlocks” and the entire first row of images is of white people—mostly women, the one exception being an image of Johnny Depp in faux dreadlocks as Capt. Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean movies. While not surprising, it seemed very telling that Googling a hairstyle primarily associated with…

Afros have been what’s hot in the streets since before hot combs were invented. In the mid-1960s, the hairstyle became a full-on fashion trend when it gained popularity both inside and outside the black community. During the black power movement, Afros symbolized a reawakening of racial pride and promotion of an Afrocentric culture and standard.…

Afrofuturism can be credited to literary greats like Octavia Butler and visual artists like Basquiat. These artists used their mediums to explore a revolutionary world where black characters controlled their own destinies. Musicians from the late 20th century like Sun Ra, George Clinton and Afrika Bambaataa melded the themes of space, alter egos and black…