Hair! How I Grew It

On today’s show, I interview Artist-Entrepreneur Keturah Bobo. Her work often embodies young black girls’ natural hair struggles. The Toledo, Ohio, native has rocked her natural for nearly a decade.

Thanks so much, Carla Moore for putting this talent on my radar. If you haven’t already, check out episode three of Hair! How I Grew It to hear Carla share her story, where she talks about the thoughtful hair choices she had to make when she was a judge.

When I was looking for an artist to design the cover of my first fiction book, which is rooted in my natural hair journey, (and by the way, is coming soon), Carla asked me, “Have you heard about the woman who did the illustrations for I Am Enough?” Carla said she bought copies of the picture book for her grandkids.  I Am Enough, I thought, never heard of it, until I did a Google search. When I saw the New York Times bestseller written by Fox’s Empire star Grace Byers, I instantly recognized the cover I’d seen in stores. It prominently features a beautiful black girl with milk chocolate skin and a curly Afro you cannot turn away from because it’s so big and breathtaking. Unfortunately, Keturah wasn’t available to do my cover, but she did say yes to this interview, and I am so grateful.

Early on in our conversation, I asked Keturah about her piece that got Hollywood’s attention. It’s also my personal favorite.

On today’s show I interview my friend, Communications Professional and Children’s Book Author Caroline Brewer.  Caroline is busy gearing up for the November release of her 12th book called Darius Daniels: Game On!, so I’m grateful, she took some time to talk to me.  

Years ago, when I asked some sistahs to write their natural hair stories for a collection of essays I wanted to publish, Caroline was the first one to say yes, so I knew I had to interview her for this podcast.    

We met in the mid-1990s in her hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana.  She was an editorial columnist for the Journal Gazette, one of the city’s local newspapers, and I was a TV reporter at the CBS station.  Caroline wore her very tight curly coils in a high-top fade.  I remember thinking, wow, when I saw it.  While natural hair wasn’t on my personal radar back then -- in fact, I didn’t see the beauty in it for years -- I did recognize the courage it took to wear it.  

On today’s show, I interview my Delta Sigma Theta Sorority sister, Carla Moore. Born and raised in Akron, Ohio, Carla is the second Delta featured on the program.  Don’t worry, this won’t turn into a DST podcast, but a few more of my Sorors will probably stop by. My father introduced me to Carla in the mid-1990s when I was a cub reporter covering crime and courts in Indiana, and she was a judge in the Akron Municipal Court. Aware of my beats, she gave me the opportunity of a lifetime.  She let me sit next to her on the bench while she presided over cases, so I could see everything going on in the courtroom from her vantage point.  The experience enriched my reporting, and I’ll always be grateful to her for that. Carla’s job as a judge is the reason why I wanted to share her natural hair journey.  Before retiring, she sat on the bench for 15 years in the Akron Municipal Court and 13 years on the Ohio Ninth District Court of Appeals.  She was the first black female judge elected to both positions.  Getting reelected required a lot of campaigning, which meant she had to maintain a clean, professional look.  And, a big part of that was hair.

On today’s show, I interview my sistah from another mistah, Estee Irby.  I wanted to talk to Estee because she’s my natural and silver hair twin.  Like me, she has course, very tight coily curls.  But, unlike me, she’s a natural newbie.  After relaxing her hair for nearly 30 years, she stopped chemically straightening it about two years ago, which I did not see coming.  But, what surprised me even more was her decision to stop dyeing.  She got her first gray strand before she was a teenager, so coloring had been a part of her life for years.          

In this HHIGI bonus clip, my Delta Sigma Theta Sorority sister, Jennifer Jones, explains why she'll never wear wigs and weaves, but she has considered sporting braids.  Braids pic courtesy of Meghan Linehan at https://www.flickr.com/photos/meghanl/.

On today’s show, I interview my Delta Sigma Theta Sorority sister, Jennifer Jones.  Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Jennifer was one of the first people I called for advice when I was thinking about going natural. She’s a Quality Assurance Analyst based in Charlotte, North Carolina. We pledged Delta together in the early 1990’s. If you’re not familiar with black hair care lingo, here’s a brief breakdown of common terms to help get you through the show. Chemical relaxer aka relaxer aka perm is a creamy substance with lye, which is applied to naturally curly hair to make it straight. Hot comb is a metal comb that’s heated on top of a stove and combed through curly hair to make it straight.  Touch up is when you apply relaxer to new hair growth that hasn’t been permed. TWA is an acronym for tweeny weeny afro. Locs are short for dreadlocks.  Jennifer and I started our conversation talking about her hair texture.