This presentation pushes back on the widely spread and believed notion that only certain Black hairstyles and hair types are political. When Blacks of the diaspora style their hair, what goes through their minds as they pull and tug, dye and cut, braid and sew, or do nothing at all? The reasonings behind why Black people style their hair in the ways they do will be brought into question in order to shine light on the shared experience that all Black people
have that affects why they style their hair in a particular fashion. We will look at a bit of the history of Black style in order to see why all Black hair is political and how Black hair styling serves as a tool
for Black people to survive and thrive in a world that does not want them to.
Bio: Taylor Ann Mazique is a junior undergraduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in History at Illinois and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign with a minor in French. She concentrates her studies on the history of Black women, Black feminism and Black girlhood.
