400 Years Without a Comb – Willie Morrow

We spoke with curator/historian Alden Kimbrough at the opening of the Thelonious Monk exhibition and when we gave him one of our “Pick Fros Not Fights™” postcards he asked us if we had seen the movie “400 Years Without a Comb” by Willie Morrow. While we do own his book from 1973 on caring for the fro, we had not seen this movie and Mr. Kimbrough told us that he’d get us a copy because we “had to see it.” So… that night, I took to Google and low and behold, sections of it are on YouTube, so we plugged the laptop into the TV and made it the nights main feature.

WOW. Talk about information! The film, that has a corresponding book, put many concepts and products we’ve seen into perspective in such a clear and orderly way that I think it should be a must-see for every person with hair -so basically EVERYONE! He shows us how the desire for straight hair manifested and how basically the African slaves were not allowed to groom their hair and with time it became something to be embarrassed by instead of proud of. Also we get to see reenactments of the early straightening techniques w/ the hot iron iron which led to development of the hot comb, the use of lye, axle grease, dirty dish water, and the re-introduction of the African comb which turned into the “Afro Pick.” Also what I found really interesting was that it put a lot of those mammy/sambo “Black Memorabilia” items that you may run into at a flea market, into the perspective of the times in which they were actually popular. I will say this, folks were CREATIVE. Just UNDERSTAND the history of how we got to where we are today, that’s all I’m encouraging. Still do you, but invest a little time to fully understand the story of hair -actually, like the concept of Frolab, its much bigger than hair.

And then, this is one of those times where the timing was off JUST by a smidge – there was an exhibit of the same name curated by Willie Morrow in San Diego that ran for the month of February and I can’t belive this was put on our radar… in March! In addition to creating the first US Afro Pick, he also is responsible for the blow out kit, the cold wave, the California Curl (aka Jheri Curl!), and the little combs almost EVERYONE of all races has owned that you attach to your hair dryer and more. This man is a forefather of black hair science, and a legend when it comes to haircare and innovation. Check out the above clip recapping the exhibit.

Surprisingly we STILL haven’t actually watched Chris Rock’s “Good Hair” – mostly bc just from the many clips I’ve seen I felt it was not encouraging of natural hair – but eventually I’ll try to catch it (when’s it gonna be on BET?). Actually it was at a BET taping a few years ago that we briefly met Nelson George and he mentioned that they had just wrapped production and he was talking about what he learned about the invention of the curl (I remember something about a “government conspiracy?” I dunno. think on that.) We know that Chris Rock did interview Dr. Morrow for the film, but we found this interview by Angela de Joseph where she aims to “set the record straight” from an hair care business insiders perspective.

So, if you rock a fro or if you don’t, these are just a few history lessons you definitely never got in school so for those seeking info, definitely spend some time and check out these videos.

“Pick Fros Not Fighst!™”