We were all busy celebrating World Afro Day that we forgot to check in with our favorite afro wearing and loving celebrities. Well for us, every day is World Afro Day because why should we not wear our hair the way we want it in all its natural glory.
World Afro Day was instituted in 2017 and is celebrated on September 15 every year. The day is set aside to celebrate and educate the world on the “iconic afro hairstyle” that was unofficially part of the Civil Rights Movement and has remained a symbol of Black pride ever since.
The Black Civil Rights then also championed ‘Black is Beautiful’ and this saw more women beginning to appreciate their natural mane. African Americans began resisting pressures to conform to the standardized European beauty images that were shared by the media at the time.
Black women wore their hair in its natural state rather than keeping it silky straight with the pressing iron. Miriam Makeba and Nina Simone, together with many other prominent black figures at the time, started to wear their afros publicly in the latter part of the 20th Century. To them, it was a symbol of pride and cultural identity.
Hollywood is becoming more accepting of black people’s hair. There are several red-carpet events where A-list celebrities like Viola Davis, Kerry Washington and Yara Shahidi have walked the carpet in their natural hair.
With the introduction of the CROWN Act, more people will be empowered to wear their hair in any traditional natural hairstyle they so please without being discriminated against, although it hasn’t been implemented nationwide yet.
This is how some celebrities rocked their natural hair on World Afro Day.
