questions itself, closed off from whiteness and invisible to men. The freedom lies then, not in whether the hair is chemically straightened or not, but in the possibility to do something with it, to change it as if on a whim, that kind of hapless freedom.

30. A successful entrepreneur experiences a surfeit of the self. She provokes a similar excess in her clientele. Walker assumed her customers desired themselves deeply, desired their hair, and that their desire to beautify only underscored their intrinsic value. 

31. The Birth of the Customer: In Beauty Shop Politics, Dr. Tracy Gill argues against the idea that black-owned beauty franchises constitute little more than an exercise in frivolity. Dr. Gill argues for a rigorous historical account of the development of black woman entrepreneurship. She evidences the advent of black beauty products as crucial to the success of 20th century beauty salons, and to black business in general. Caught in the space of seeming decadence and survivalist dress, getting your hair done, as one of our most hardened behaviors, fuels a billion dollar industry.

32. The Walker System: a shampoo, a pomade “hair-grower,” vigorous brushing, and the application of heated iron combs to the hair. The method, which was simply controlled destruction, transformed kinky hair by debulking it to the point of thinness. Walker’s manufacturing company hired black women to demonstrate the technique to prospective customers. Known as “Walker Agents,” they became familiar figures throughout the United States and Caribbean. Like doctors, they made “house calls”; always dressed in white shirtwaists tucked into long black skirts and carrying the black satchels containing preparations and a combing apparatus. They dressed as professionals do, uniformed, puffed up to the chest with the anonymous pride working for a corporation provides.