One of my biggest goals for this senior seminar project is to add something new to the scholarship already available on the subject of black beauty salons and the Civil Rights Movement. There is a fair amount of research into the topic of black beauty salons and their connection to the Civil Rights Movement. Taking advantage of the primary sources available, I want to delve a little deeper into the function of beauty salons in Georgia and the Atlanta area. I want to focus on the clients of these beauty shops and how African American women used these spaces as a means to exercise their freedom of speech in a society that often denied them a voice whether on the basis of their gender or their skin tone. I seek to explore beauty salons as a part of a tradition of black women’s involvement in economics and its use as a means for civic and political engagement especially since the start of the beauty industry while positioning hair as a reason unifier and bonding activity among these women.
Additionally, I would like to become more familiar with Auburn Avenue in Atlanta and more familiar with some of the local protagonists in this story of women in the Civil Rights Movement. I would also like to generate discussion in an accessible space such as my digital portfolio and use it as a body of work that connects with future research and future projects as a public historian. I would like to finish this seminar believing that I have thoroughly researched my topic to the best of my ability and collaborated effectively with those around me.
