Move Back
![Cuba_Hair_black__2_]()
Runner-up contestant Yanely Salgado, 31, displays her hairdo on stage during an Afro hair contest in Havana, Saturday, June 13, 2015. Young Afro-Cuban performance artist Susana Delahante has transformed a Havana cultural center into the stage of a black hairstyle competition this weekend in a rare public commentary on racial beauty standards in Cuba, where prejudice remains widespread and largely undiscussed. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)![Cuba_Hair_black__6_]()
Women laugh while they attend an Afro hair contest in Havana, Saturday, June 13, 2015. Sociologists say black Cubans' reluctance to identify themselves as such is a powerful indication of lingering prejudice. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)![Cuba_Hair_black__9_]()
Felicia Solano, 72, displays her Afro hairdo on the catwalk during an Afro hair contest in Havana, Saturday, June 13, 2015. After a two-hour competition in which 70 women competed Saturday evening, the audience of about 300 people voted by applause, handing the natural-hair prize to Solano, whose white outfit dramatically set off her halo of white hair. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)![Cuba_Hair_black__5_]()
Runner-up contestant Dayanira, 4, waits to go on stage to display her hairdo during an Afro hair contest in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, June 13, 2015. Behind closed doors and even in public, white Cubans talk disparagingly about black Cubans in ways that have become socially unacceptable in many other countries, describing them as criminals and forbidding their children from dating Afro-Cuban schoolmates. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)![Cuba_Hair_black__1_]()
Contestants display their hairdo on stage during an Afro hair contest in Havana, Saturday, June 13, 2015. Susana Delahante, an internationally known 30-year-old Havana artist, invited black and mixed-race women to compete in three hair categories, natural, braided and dreadlocked. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)![Cuba_Hair_black__8_]()
Contestants get ready to go out on the catwalk during an Afro hair contest in Havana, Saturday, June 13, 2015. Contemporary Cubans are descended mostly from Spanish colonists and their West African slaves, and Cubans categorize themselves as black, white or mixed-race. But the Afro-Cuban population still generally has worse housing, transportation and food than whites. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)![Cuba_Hair_black__10_]()
Runner-up contestant Paulina Champan, 5, waits to walk on the catwalk to display her hairdo during an Afro hair contest in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, June 13, 2015. Black Cubans also have been the losers in President Raul Castro's economic reforms and are notably absent even on the lower rungs of those new private businesses, such as in service jobs like wait staff positions that bring in big tips from foreign customers. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)![Cuba_Hair_black__11_]()
Felicia Solano, 72, center, prepares to walk on stage to display her Afro hairdo on the catwalk during an afro hair contest in Havana, Saturday, June 13, 2015. Solano won the natural-hair prize. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)![Cuba_Hair_black__3_]()
A contestant jokes about her hair before going on stage during an Afro hair contest in Havana, Saturday, June 13, 2015. Susana Delahante, an internationally known 30-year-old Havana artist described the competition as a way of rebuilding pride among Afro-Cuban women in a society where kinky hair and black skin often are seen as less beautiful than straight locks and pale complexions. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)![Cuba_Hair_black__4_]()
Contestants joke as they wait to walk on the catwalk during an Afro hair contest in Havana, Saturday, June 13, 2015. In a two-hour competition 70 women competed in three hair categories, natural, braided and dreadlocked. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)Revolutionary coif: Cuban artist uses hair styles to shine light on racial issues
Artist Susana Delahante and the black and mixed-race participants in a Havana hair competition describe it as a way of rebuilding pride among Afro-Cuban women in a society where kinky hair and black skin often are seen as less beautiful than straight locks and pale complexions.
Move Forward
- Revolutionary coif: Cuban artist uses hair styles to shine light on racial issues
