Hair Glossary

A frontrunner to the eventual black pride all natural Afro style, the Conk appeared in the 1920s on popular black entertainer, Cab Calloway. The Conk was a tricky and uncomfortable style to create and involved "relaxing" the hair with full strength lye to give hair a straight "white" texture and appearance. Although the black hair could be effectively straightened with the relaxers, humidity and heat could cause the hair to quickly return to its natural curly state. To avoid this from happening, black men who had their hair straightened with lye would wrap their hair in rags which ultimately became known as "do-rags" popularized by football players in the late 1990s and early 2000s.