Atlanta, GA
Atlanta hairstylist turns original Madam C.J. Walker beauty shop into Black history museum
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – Atlanta hairstylist Ricci de Forest turned an original Madam C.J. Walker beauty shop into a museum filled with Black history.
De Forest said he accidentally stumbled upon the shop 30 years ago after a turn off historic Auburn Avenue.
11 years after that moment, he got the space and everything inside, including the original hair tools from the Madam C.J. Walker shop.
Walker sold beauty products and became one of the wealthiest Black women of her time.
De Forest told Atlanta News First he was fortunate enough to meet one of the shop’s last living stylists.
“When she started doing hair here in the 1940s with these tools, a shampoo and press was 25 cents for a Negro woman,” de Forest said.
De Forest discovered even more civil rights history hidden upstairs.
The first Black-owned radio station, WERD, was on the second floor of the building.
“1949 to 1968, it’s the station Dr. Martin Luther King used,” de Forest said. “No white station would let a Negro come on and say where to boycott or coordinate logistics for the Civil Rights Movement, so WERD is crucial.”
De Forest decided to incorporate the music aspect into the space, with a donated collection of nearly 15,000 records.
Inside the museum, photos of prominent Black artists line the walls and hang from the ceiling.
“These are some of the individuals that would have gone to WERD back in the day,” he said.
Everything in the museum represents a puzzle piece that de Forest put together in his own artistic way to show the history.
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