Willie Lee Morrow, who has died aged 82, was an American barber and haircare entrepreneur who invented the “Afro choose” and the chemical behind the Jheri Curl; in 1969, he was employed by the US Department of Defense to show army barbers the best way to minimize African-American hair.
One of eight youngsters, Morrow was born on October 9 1939 in Eutaw, Alabama, to sharecropper mother and father, Hollie and Olean Morrow; his father bootlegged whiskey on the aspect.
Aged 13, he taught himself the best way to minimize hair, as a route out of poverty, and in 1959, aged 18, moved to San Diego, California, to “attempt my concepts and imaginative and prescient in a metropolis I had learn was the Harlem of the West”. He bought a job at a salon, and when its proprietor retired, purchased him out for $5,000.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2022/09/05/willie-lee-morrow-barber-who-invented-afro-pick-comb-obituary/
