Fabric of Hair Educates: Willie Lee Morrow
Willie Lee Morrow, a barber turned entrepreneur who helped popularize tools such as the Afro pick and styles including the one dubbed the Jheri curl over more than half a century as an innovator in Black hair care, died June 22 at his home in San Diego. He was 82.
Mr. Morrow started his career at age 12 or 13 as what he described as a “stump barber,” with a tree stump as his barber chair, in the tiny Alabama locality where his parents worked as sharecroppers.
In pursuit of greater economic opportunity, he moved in 1959 to San Diego, where he established himself as a go-to stylist in the African American community and, eventually, one of the city’s most prominent Black business leaders as the founder of a hair-care supply empire.
The tools and products he developed, including combs used to create the Afro hairstyle popular in the 1960s and 1970s and a line of creams formulated to produce the looser curls that later came into fashion, made him one of the most influential figures in the history of how Black hair is cared for and viewed in society.
“Ever since there was racism, ever since there was discrimination against Black bodies, there was discrimination against Black hair as well.” With hair, the individual demonstrates his or her social significance, philosophical and cultural legacy,” he wrote in “400 years without a comb” a 1973 book that was one of multiple volumes he published about the history and practice of Black hair styling. “Hair is the basic, natural symbol of things people are or want to be everywhere and the social-cultural significance of a hairstyle should not be underestimated.”
For generations, many Black people seeking acceptance in White society felt pressure to straighten their hair to conform to White notions of beauty, a time-consuming, expensive process that often damaged the hair and scalp.
The early years of Mr. Morrow’s career coincided with the rise in popularity of the Afro, a hairstyle that showcased natural texture and became a symbol of Black pride.
At the time, there were few suitable styling tools for the Afro. “You know what people would use?” Mr. Morrow once told a Reporter; “Angel food cake cutters.” After an acquaintance traveled to Africa in 1962 and brought back a hand-carved African hair comb.
Mr. Morrow began crafting similar models that in time were selling 12,000 units a week. Mr. Morrow is noted as “the man who first mass-produced the plastic Afro pick” in the United States.
He was one of the first people to publicly proclaim that Black hair is a cultural contribution to American history, as well as a way that Black people came together and formed traditions and rituals and language and all of these things that really define what is Black culture.
He was one of the first people to publicly proclaim that.
Facts!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️