There\u2019s power in her hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s wisdom in her hair. There\u2019s triumph in her hair. Yes, there\u2019s pain in her hair. But at the root of it all, there\u2019s love in her hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To artist Nikki McComb, there are stories in her hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are the stories of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X \u2013 men willing to live \u2026 men who would die \u2026 for their people. There are the stories of Harriet Tubman shepherding her people to freedom, W.E.B. DuBois elevating his people through education and fittingly, Madam C.J. Walker, who used hair (and hair care) to build an empire. There are the stories of the hope of a Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. And there are the stories of those who are hidden in plain sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI wanted to tell our story in a unique way that included national and local figures who have made \u2013 and are making \u2013 history daily,\u201d said McComb, explaining her inspiration behind the artwork, \u201cAfro Stories,\u201d which adorns this week\u2019s cover of Insight News.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to well-known historical figures, McComb makes it a point with \u201cAfro Stories\u201d to pay tribute to those who have offered significant contributions to humanity but may not have lived in the spotlight. People such as Bessie Coleman and Ruby Bridges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coleman, who was African-American and Native-American, was the first woman of either ethnicity to hold a commercial pilot\u2019s license. Bridges, at just six years old, took powerful steps for generations to come when she and three other Black children integrated the public schools of New Orleans in 1960. Four years later her steps were immortalized in the now iconic Norman Rockwell painting, \u201cThe Problem We All Live With.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n McComb also honors several Twin Cities based figures in \u201cAfro Stories,\u201d such as revered educator and civil rights icon, Mahmoud El-Kati and political and civil rights stalwart, Dr. Josie Johnson. Names of recent history makers, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Minneapolis City Council members Andrea Jenkins and Phillipe Cunningham, flow seamlessly next to those of King, X and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n