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My Black Hair Journey Completed The Love I Have for Myself

Black hair matters and embracing it brought me closer to my culture and race

James Woods
4 min readFeb 5, 2021
Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

August 8, 2016, started like any other college Friday for me. My friend had asked me to go to dinner with her and I started to get ready after my last class. I went into the shower and started to wash my hair when I noticed something laying on the top of my forehead. Intrigued by the prospect of it being a curl, I didn’t dry my hair when I stepped out of the shower. I immediately went to the mirror to see what I had never seen before, a head full of curls.

You see prior to that moment, I always had the same routine. I would get out of the shower and dry off my hair and body with my towel. I’d then pick out my hair and play around with it for a couple of minutes until it took on the shape I deemed acceptable. Looking at myself in the mirror that day, I told myself something I’ve never thought before, my hair looked beautiful.

Growing up in a White area, I always felt like my hair was something that had to be tamed and managed. I usually kept my haircut low to avoid the hassle that came with styling it, but by the time I went to college, I didn’t have the time or money to get my haircut regularly. This meant that my hair was being cut 3 or 4 times a year. In between…

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James Woods
James Woods

Written by James Woods

I’m not afraid to challenge the status quo. Editor-in-chief of Perceive More! Find me at https://perceive.substack.com too.

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