By Jenna Brooks
This November a bold new art exhibition opened in Atlanta, Georgia that was centered entirely on black hair and its impact on black women and black culture. Called
The Black Hair Experience, its two curators, artists Alisha Brooks and Elizabeth Austin-Davis, were inspired by content creators on social media and the black hair care industry as a whole. The exhibit is interactive and wanted to show black women that their hair is beautiful and inspiring, something vital to their culture as a whole.
The exhibit showcases a mix of photography and interactive pieces, including a gift shop housing all sorts of hair and beauty products. There are multiple different things to see and touch, including a swing made of natural hair and hair products dangling from the ceiling almost like a chandelier. It was all designed by Brooks and Austin-Davis as a way to promote self-love among black women, showing them that their hair is beautiful and something to be celebrated rather
whatever it is we need to help get resources into the community. chief, appreciate the time. . one year after that rally, we have seen a suppression of voter rights, a president revitalizing the war on drugs, a roll back of the justice department s civil rights division and reversal of fair housing and public assistance programs. joining me now with more on race in america, jameill smith from rolling stone magazine and alisha brooks, outreach director for the southern poverty law center. take stock for us. let s talk here broadly about how things have changed in this country when it comes to race. as i mentioned, there was a short tweet from the president this morning at least noting that this is the anniversary of what happened in charlottesville. i ll read it to you, the riots in charlottesville resulted in senseless death and division. we must come together as a
we re hoping that it doesn t develop to the point at which it did yesterday. i think a lot of people are hoping and praying and watching this rolling coverage that we ve been seeing out of seattle washington, there. i want to bring in lisha brooks, the law director of the southern poverty center. talk to us about this group, patriot prayer. what do you know about them? they identify themselves as an alt-right group. they re firly new. we ve seen them at anti-sharia demonstrations in the past. their leader did call on the group not to respond to the counterprotesters, but this is exactly what they want. this is what anti this is what fascist ohs and white nationalist groups want. they want to see chaos. they want to bring more attention to their cause and then they can paint the liberals as the bad guy. so they re not the innocents in this at all. steve, i want to go back to you. are you seeing messages out there from the counterprotesters, asking people
to the right or lean to the left. if no one in a position of power condemns this, it will be allowed to become normalized. alisha brooks, we ask that you stick around. we need to turn to dan merrica in bridge water, new jersey not far from the president in bedminster. dan, has the president given any indication that he s watching what is unfolding or has he had any kind of response? reporter: no response yet from the white house, from white house aides. athena jones and i have reached out multiple times and haven t heard anything back. president trump has made comments in the past about alt-right, who try to draft off his 2016 campaign, rise to national prominence. you have these people like richard spencer and david duke who spoke out in favor of donald trump s campaign and really gained a national following.
today s gathering a show of force by protesters and counter protestors unparalleled across the country. all right. please stick around. we ll check back in with you. but joining us is the director of the southern poverty law center, alisha brooks. what is your response to seeing what unfolded today in charlottesville? our response is we re not at all surprised. we saw this coming of course. this is the third such protest, largest to be sure that has happened in charlottesville recently. we saw richard spencer there in may with torches. we saw a clan rally in july. and then today this unite the right rally has turned out to be what we expected. southern poverty law center described this event as the largest hate gathering of its kind in decades.