If you are a mom of a little girl with afro textured hair then you know how important it is to ensure that she knows how beautiful she is and how beautiful her hair is.
Recently one mom, Lekia Lee, was recognized for going the extra mile for her daughter by when she rented a billboard for her daughter who since the age of 3 only had an appreciation for straight silky hair.
Via the Washington Post:
When Lekia Lée’s daughter was 3, she would compliment various women in public about their hair. But Lée soon noticed the only hair she would compliment was straight, smooth hair, which looked nothing like what the toddler saw in the mirror: naturally textured Afro hair.
“I said, “ ‘Wow, she is already recognizing that is the only way to have great hair,’ ” Lée, a London resident of Nigerian heritage, told The Washington Post. She realized that many of her daughter’s friends with similar naturally curly or coiled hair felt the same way. When they saw images of beauty in advertisements, on television or elsewhere, the hair rarely reflected their own.
“Black women are generally not born with straight hair,” Lée said. “That’s basically saying black women are not beautiful.”
But for the past two weeks, her daughter Siira, now 11, has been able to see herself on a billboard among the images of girls and women featured wearing their hair naturally.
None are professional models. Lée created the billboard, which went up for International Women’s Day on March 8, to show young black girls like Siira that their hair is beautiful and that they should wear it as naturally and as boldly as they please.
The advertisement, Lée said, is meant to send the message: “This is how I am, this is how I look. Why should I be pressured to look differently from who I am?”
We think this is such an awesome idea and with billboards becoming less popular for regular advertising it would be nice to use them to send positive messages especially to our little girls.
This is what the board looks like:
There’s nothing more normal in my daughter than her hair,” Lée said. “I think it’s a shame that we have to normalize something that is just so natural to so many women.”
Through the organization Lée created, called Project Embrace, Lée hopes to launch more billboard campaigns to continue encouraging what she calls “visibility” of Afros and natural hair.
When the billboard went up two weeks ago, Lée and her daughter took the train to the area to try to spot it.
Walking near the sign, Lée said to her daughter, “I see it! Look!” They were both shrieking.
“Oh, my God, look at it!” her daughter said. “I want my friends to see it in school!”
Too dope!
