How Black hair care grew Black power

Planet Money

NPR

News, Business

4.6 • 30.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Afro is one of the most iconic hairstyles of the last century. And one of its main ingredients was a hair product – Afro Sheen. But Afro Sheen did so much more than make Black afros shine. It was the money behind the television show Soul Train, it helped fuel the civil rights movement – all because of an entrepreneur named George Johnson.

For decades, Joan and George Johnson owned and ran Johnson Products Company, a Black hair care company out of Chicago. Their intimate understanding of what Black people wanted and needed – for their hair and for their lives – helped grow the Black middle class and became an engine for Black culture and power. They helped turn the Black haircare industry into what is now a multi-billion-dollar industry. But although they helped create this industry, they no longer have a part in it.

Today on the show – the story of the rise and fall of Johnson Products. We’re gonna tell you this story in three hairstyles. The conk, the afro… and the jheri curl.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:06.1	There's this woman on TikTok who is so incredibly compelling.
0:10.1	The next dress is from Zandra Rhodes, and I do have an iconic photo of my grandmother wearing it to let me show you.
0:16.5	Her name is Olivia Joan Ghaly.
0:18.3	Like, so beautiful.
0:20.3	She's a young black photographer in all of these posts.
0:23.1	Olivia Joan is trying on pieces from a heap of incredibly fancy vintage clothing on a couch.
0:31.1	The beadwork is just impeccable.
0:33.7	It all belonged to her grandmother.
0:35.6	His dress weighs like 50 pounds. It is very heavy.
0:39.3	There are shoes that cost more than some people's rent, and have never even been worn.
0:45.3	And then there are some very worn things.
0:48.3	This used to be my grandmother's favorite top.
0:50.3	It even has like a bunch of stains on it from which she spilled.
0:53.3	And it still smells like her
0:55.0	too. And she was my best friend. And so yeah, I'm running out of time. Okay. Bye.
1:00.9	The thing that's so striking about Olivia Jones posts is that these are couture dresses.
1:05.6	So her grandmother, a black woman, was wearing custom Chanel, Givanchi, Eve Saint Laurent.
1:11.8	This is for the wealthiest of the wealthy.
1:14.4	Some of the same designers who dressed Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy, and Princess Diana,
1:19.9	dressing this black woman from the south side of Chicago.
1:23.3	We called up Olivia Joan, and she told us that is why she's been posting these outfits of her grandmothers.
	...

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