BHM 2022 – Meet Annie Turnbo Malone

For someone who has spent endless hours as well as spending a lot of money on my numerous hairstyles I was excited to learn of the entrepreneur Annie Turnbo Malone. Annie was a millionaire black hair icon whose mansions were listed in The Green Book but, her legacy is often overlooked.

At the 87 years old, Annie died of a stroke on May 10, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois. By the time of her death, Malone had lost her national visibility and most of her money. Having no children her estate, valued at $100,000, was left to her nieces and nephews.

During the late 19th century, African American women used soap, goose fat, and heavy oils to straighten their hair. As a result – I can’t imagine going to those lengths to straighten my hair in the past – Annie developed and patented the pressing comb, or hot comb as I know it, which is still in use today. As a teenager pretty much loathing (how I would have described as) my tough, hard to manage hair, wishing that I could swop it for the straight flowing, luscious hair that my white friends would so easily run their fingers through, tossing over their shoulders with carefree ease. Then one day my mum came home with a hot comb in hand, placed it on the lighted stove to heat it to the required temperature (I can still hear the sizzle of the comb as it made contact with the hair grease) and skilfully transformed my kinks into straight, easy to manage hair. What joy!!! I was free and almost able to mimic my white friends – well I couldn’t quite toss my hair over my shoulders but I could at least run my fingers freely through it. The drawback was that I couldn’t get my hair wet, once the moisture hit, my hair reverted back to its natural, hard to manage state until I was able to have it straightened again. Even with the frequent slip of the hand resulting in the hot comb briefly touching the tips of my ears lobes or the back of my neck – yes there were burns and subsequent scaring – I still felt that this was all worth it, even if I had straight hair for just one day

Click here to learn more about the history of the hot comb

As a chemist and entrepreneur, Annie became a millionaire by successfully developing and marketing hair products for black women in St. Louis. She used her wealth to promote the advancement of African Americans and gave away most of her money to charity. A costly divorce cut into Malone’s wealth and poor management of the company, trusting people who weren’t pure of heart and not being a good steward of her finances, took most of the rest.

Thanks to Annie, black women were able to move on from using soap, goose fat, heavy oils and even the hot comb to straighten their hair, having the use of better products to help with our hair care. Although I no longer chemically straighten my hair and with the awareness of how these products can damaged our hair as well as our health (with societally pressures impacting on how we present ourselves in the systems that we operate in – that’s a blog for another time) I still want to take this time to honour Annie for her contributions to black women over the years which made it possible for black women to present ourselves as we see fit and not how society says we should in order to be accepted.