She felt safe.
Music and familiar voices hummed around her Salisbury home. Tahlia McLendon nestled between her mom’s legs on the living room floor, trying to sit still. The youngest’s tiny rows of braids would take nearly two hours.
Smells of product bloomed as her cousin’s hair relaxed, and her sister worked beside her. Busy fingers worked in tight pattern, while others let previous work unravel. Women around her traded stories, giving advice and discussing a world the 5-year-old was just getting to know. Not yet tying her own shoes, she sat transfixed by other loops.
“There was a lot of wisdom being spoken in those moments, a lot of love being shared,” McLendon remembered, unexpected tears finding the edges of her brown eyes. “I just keep relating it to feeling comfort, with your family, everybody chatting … I’m sorry, just memorable.”
Whether the experience played out on the living room floor or a kitchen table, the gentle pull of her mom’s braids or eventually her own, these weekly moments of tradition across generations inspired a passion.
Some 25 years later, McLendon works with hair for a living. Such memories not only drive her career — now working at Thee Essenze Hair Salon and Barbershop near New Castle, Delaware — they will also be carried back with her to the final hosting of the National Folk Festival in Salisbury, Maryland.
Armed with mannequins, tripods, accessories, her own hair oils and family hands, McLendon plans to bring an interactive display to the festival. She hopes to share techniques of a craft rooted in personal identity, regional history and deep cultural connection.
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She called on the same help she grew up with on the Lower Shore.
“When I initially told my sisters, it was just instant support,” McLendon said, recalling her selection as an artist this spring. The beautician, handling anything from braids to flat-iron services or natural hair care, knew she’d still need help from her two sisters, Raeshema and Dia Hitch.
“It was kind of familiar — I felt like we’ll be back to that place we once were.”
Shared roots
She didn’t stay still long.
April Jackson remembers her daughter’s same little head eventually turning around in protest.
“Tahlia could have been like maybe 8 or 9, and she just insisted on trying to do her own hair,” the Salisbury city councilwoman said with a laugh. “She maintained her own hair at a very early age, even though I tried. And she did a very good job at it, I can tell you.”
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Jackson braided hair long before she had McLendon or her three other children. Inspired while briefly living in Philadelphia, she remembers bringing back beads and styles on the Delmarva Peninsula, practicing on other kids in Lakeside Park by the time she was 9.
Later raising children on her own, Jackson took to braiding and other hair care even more. When the mother wasn’t in school or working two jobs, she’d pack appointments from Friday to Sunday, hoping to make extra money to keep the family comfortable.
She watched her youngest daughter pick up on it. Appointments were made with the dolls in her room. She kept up with her older sisters, who were already dabbling in braiding and working with weaves.
“It just grew,” Jackson said. “I used to watch her do her Barbies, and I’m like: ‘She’s gonna end up doing hair; she’s gonna end up doing hair.’”
Mom had a point.
Her sisters, brother Raymond and even her father have all taken interest in hair — but today McLendon is the one bringing care and maintenance tips home to visit. About five years out of her Paul Mitchell cosmetology schooling in Delaware, she’s been sharpening her skills near New Castle.
It’s a path she didn’t always see, studying in college, joining the military. Yet, now it couldn’t feel more natural.
“I can’t pinpoint exactly when that hit me,” the 31-year-old said, sitting in the car ahead of her first client. “My mom and my sisters, over the years, I’ve watched them braid tons of people’s hair. I feel like it almost just kind of fell in my lap.”
More than techniques have been passed down.
More than braids
She doesn’t like being the center of attention.
Standing behind the chair, working with diverse shapes and textures of hair, McLendon’s work can take hours. She gets to know her clients. She’s no stranger to giving advice, at times near therapy, while her hands are busy.
So the stylist hopes an intimate festival setup might allow her to discuss more than the latest braids.
“The African culture of braiding — that’s something I would want people to want to know about, if it piques your curiosity,” McLendon said. “There are so many cool things that underlie the actual foundation of braiding, so I do plan on having a little bit of education as well.”
Braids were once a mode of communication between African societies, according to the 81st National Folk Festival, imparting details about identity, marital status and beliefs, in what some call “the first form of fiber or textile art.”
Black hair itself has long been tied to identity, as Lori Tharps, writer and former associate professor at Temple University, echoes in a book she co-authored, “Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America.”
Her work traces styles and meanings — from families having a specific hairstyle, to complexities communicating your place in society — all the way to pre-colonial west Africa. Slavery nearly erased these traditions. That era and the following decades in the U.S. sowed the seeds for racist stereotyping around Black hair, which still persist today.
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Generations have had to face the limited lens of Eurocentric beauty standards. By the 1960s, Black hairstyles even played their own role in Black liberation movements. Many say they still encounter pressure or discrimination. Today, momentum continues to celebrate natural hair, while Black hair care remains a symbol of identity, freedom — or simply creative expression.
McLendon is honored to represent her little corner of Delmarva crossroads.
“I know my roots when it comes to hair braiding,” she said. “It’s a very sentimental moment to me, and I believe things happen for a reason. … The art form that we’re doing goes back years and years. Still carrying on that tradition? It’s amazing.”
