Edward G. Gardner, the founder of Soft Sheen Products Inc., passed away on Monday, March 20, 2023, at the age of 98. His passing is a great loss to the business world, the beauty industry, and the community he served. Born in Chicago in 1925, Gardner grew up in a time...
Black beauty supply stores started in black beauty and barber shops that were located in black communities across America in the early 20th century. Affluent blacks traveled to those community beauty salons and barber shops to have their hair done and bought products that were specifically made for their hair type by black hair care innovators.
Frank Davie, who transformed haircare in the Black community in the 1970s and 1980s, was called home to be with the Lord on November 10.
Struggle and resistance are hallmarks of the African American experience, but they are not the only story. Beyond the reach of the “White gaze,” Black people worked and played, laughed and loved, hoped and dreamed, started families, built schools and businesses, formed communities, and created vast social networks that, borrowing from the motto of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, lifted as they climbed. In this new four-hour documentary series, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes us “behind the Veil” of racial segregation in Jim Crow America to tell their story.