This blog post is the last in a series that features the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI) Junior Fellows from the Library’s 2023 Junior Fellows program. These posts highlight each fellow and the projects they developed. CCDI funded six interns in this year’s virtual 10-week program. CCDI is part of the Library’s Mellon-funded Of the People: Widening the Path initiative.
This summer, CCDI’s Junior Fellows created guides that examine Library collections and demonstrate how to use those collections to develop creative projects such as zines, textiles, and collages. They explored topics that ranged from Black and Asian American activism, to the LGBTQ+ Latinx movement, to community-based collaborations, to art and expressive culture, including Asian textiles and African American hair history. As part of their work, they interviewed Library staff and other users to discuss their research topics and to learn more about the Library’s collections.
This guest post, written by Majestie Varnado, a 2023 CCDI Junior Fellow, introduces her project, “Heavy is the Hair: Evolution of African Hair in America from the 17th c. to the 20thc.” Majestie is a Master’s student at Texas Woman’s University pursuing a degree in Library and Information Sciences.
You can read her guide here.
Reading the term “good hair” brought me back to hearing it for the first time in my childhood, where a hot comb burned my scalp in my mother’s kitchen.
As a Black woman, my hair has always been a topic of conversation. Since I was little, I remember being called “tender-headed” when my mother would braid my hair so tight it hurt. I was thankful when I was old enough to get my hair straightened, even if it meant sitting for two hours while my mother combed and greased and parted my hair, blowing on my scalp every time the hot comb or flat iron got too close to skin. I was told I had “good hair” because it straightened well and grew long. I remembered having my hair touched and played with and feeling pride in it, feeling relieved that it was “good”. I burned my bangs right out of my head trying to straighten out any curls that dared see the light of day.
As I got older and the natural hair movement started taking off, I got curious. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I started reaching for the pressing oil less. I bought new hair products and practiced the LOC method (Liquid, oil, cream—and later, liquid, cream, oil), and I tried to learn to love it that way. The struggle was real. My eyes began to open to the world around my hair, Black hair, and I wondered why I’d gone so long hating what I’d been given.
I remembered how fascinating Black hair could be while brainstorming ideas for the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI)’s “If We Twe