Karyn Parsons looked to the internet for pictures of curlies for inspiration
I have to say, I advocate sticking with it for at least like 6 months (once you chop or transition”>. After 5 months, even with the negative feelings I’d been battling with, I knew that I wasn’t going back. I was like, ‘are you kidding me, this is me. I’m never going back.’ The first few months I was like ‘oh God, I made a mistake!’ So it’s a process like you said, and I’d really like to reinforce that with people. I had heard people say that before, but I didn’t believe them. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. So when I started having my doubts and negative feelings, I told myself, ‘my hair is different… my situation is different,’ feeling like I was the first to go through this. But I was wrong.
CN: Tell me about your current projects.
KP: I’m very excited about my non-profit organization SweetBlackberry.org. I started it a few years ago and focused our mission on bringing little known stories of African American achievement to kids, in the form of light animation. We share the stories that risk being lost. There is little emphasis on the fact that Black people helped build this country. I want to inspire children because the obstacles our ancestors overcame were unbelievable. I also want to help and foster a sense of unity and help children to realize that we’re all much more alike than we are different. I want to show them how we’re all in this together and that we helped forge this place and this culture.
The first story was about Henry Box Brown– the slave that literally mailed himself to freedom in a box. I had never heard of it, but my mom is a librarian and she would call me with random stories, and this one stuck out. It was the impetuous for the whole thing. We’re on Twitter and Facebook now and have a lot of stuff in store. Please check us out!
CN: Any final words for the CN community?
KP: I’m just so thrilled that there is such a supportive community out there. Thanks for offering that!
