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In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!
Shop nowHair Story
Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America
Narrator
Janina Edwards
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Length
8 hours 54 minutes
Language
English
Two world wars, the Civil Rights movement, and a Jheri curl later, Blacks in America continue to have a complex and convoluted relationship with their hair. From the antebellum practice of shaving the head in an attempt to pass as a "free" person to the 2013 uproar over an Ohio school that banned Afro puffs, the issues surrounding Black hair continue to linger as we move through the twenty-first century.
Tying the personal to the political and the popular, Hair Story takes a chronological look at the culture behind the ever-changing state of Black hair—from fifteenth-century Africa to the present-day United States. Hair Story is the book Black Americans can use as a benchmark for tracing a unique aspect of their history, and that people of any background will celebrate as the reference guide for understanding Black hair.
Ayana D. Byrd graduated from Barnard College and is coeditor of Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips, and Other Parts. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, as well as magazines including Glamour, Essence, and Rolling Stone.
Lori L. Tharps is an assistant professor of journalism at Temple University. A graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, she is also the author of the memoir Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain.
Janina Edwards, a graduate of New York University's Tisch Schools of the Arts, recorded her first audiobook in 1987. She was born in Chicago, soaked in New York City's African and West Indian accents for 11 years, and for the past twenty years has swum in the swagger of the south (Atlanta, Georgia). As a result, she excels in portraying authentic characters and voices the African Diaspora. Her 2018 audiobook, The Wedding Date, is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner, and Voice of Freedom (2016, Dreamscape) was an Audie Award finalist. In addition to narrating audiobooks, she is a certified yoga teacher, sings kirtan, and plays the violin.