Two world wars, the Civil Rights movement, and a Jheri curl later, Blacks in America continue to have a complex and convoluted relationship with their hair. From the antebellum practice of shaving the head in an attempt to pass as a "free" person to the 2013 uproar over an Ohio school that banned Afro puffs, the issues surrounding Black hair continue to linger as we move through the twenty-first century.

Tying the personal to the political and the popular, Hair Story takes a chronological look at the culture behind the ever-changing state of Black hair—from fifteenth-century Africa to the present-day United States. Hair Story is the book Black Americans can use as a benchmark for tracing a unique aspect of their history, and that people of any background will celebrate as the reference guide for understanding Black hair.