Niani Barracks usually tends to clients at a salon in Detroit, but now that she must stay indoors because of the coronavirus pandemic, she has instead been running her fingers through the hair of a mannequin head affixed to a stand in her home, as a dozen other black women watch her online.
In one video, Ms. Barracks gently cradles three strands of hair between her fingers as she explains how to start a braid.
“Braids are three sections: We always — even if you are cornrowing — start with three sections,” Ms. Barracks, 30, says as she begins to braid the mannequin’s dark brown hair.
She pauses and turns to the camera. “Can you see that?” she asks the women in her hair-braiding class, which is held on Facebook Live in a private group.
For $5, students can join the class, A Safe Space for Black Girls That Never Learned How to Braid. The skill is essential for many black women trying to keep their hair healthy while they practice social distancing. Braids are the foundation of many protective hairstyles, like wigs and hair extensions.
With nonessential businesses closing and nearly two dozen states urging at least 212 million Americans to stay home, Facebook has experienced a sharp increase in the use of its Live feature, which lets users broadcast videos. Most of the students in Ms. Barracks’s class are black women hoping to learn how to braid while salons and barbershops have shuttered to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
After she started staying home with her son when his school closed, Ms. Barracks got the idea to start the class.
“There were some moments of anxiety when I realized I don’t have another job and that I won’t be making any money,” Ms. Barracks said. “Everything started shutting down except the bills.”
On March 15, Ms. Barracks posted on her Facebook profile about her class. In a week, 75 students signed up.
Twice a week, for an hour, Ms. Barracks goes live in the private group. Her students can comment and ask questions. They sometimes ask her to repeat a step they couldn’t quite master and she obliges. She also makes herself available on Zoom, a video-calling app, for questions.
“That makes it different from a YouTube tutorial,” Ms. Barracks said. “On YouTube you can pause it or rewind it, but with a live video someone can say: ‘Can you do that over again? I am having issues grabbing the hair on the right side.’”
Several students, many of them parents trying to learn how to maintain their children’s hair while salons are closed, said they were thankful for Ms. Barracks’s class.
“A true fact is that a lot of us don’t know how to take care of our own hair,” said one student, Debra Turnboe, 21.
“It is not that we don’t want to, we just do not know how,” said Ms. Turnboe, who used her 1-year-old daughter, Dream, as her mannequin during the class.
For many black women, a salon visit is about more than simply aesthetics or treating themselves during a stressful time, said Dr. Michele S. Green, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.
“Black women have delicate hair and hair follicles,” Dr. Green said. “Not being able to see someone or get any treatment can cause damage.”
Learning to braid can present its own obstacles, too. Not knowing how to braid or how to keep hair healthy is a source of shame for some black women, Ms. Barracks said.
“It is like the stereotype that all black people know how to dance; that is not necessarily true,” she said.
That is why Ms. Barracks said she had proclaimed her course a safe place.
“You don’t have to feel a way; you are in a virtual room with women that are just like you or women that want to support you,” she said.
Many users on Facebook have decided to use the platform to educate others while they are at home.
In the United States, Facebook has had a 50 percent increase in Facebook Live viewers in the past month, according to a company spokeswoman.
Many classes have sprouted up on Facebook in the past couple of weeks, according to the spokeswoman. Among them are a virtual ballet class with 1,500 members that was created on March 15, and a 19,000-member virtual children’s camp that started on March 12.
It seems the newfound time at home is a good opportunity to hone a new skill.
“I can still stand to learn something,” said Carole Taylor, 60, a student in Ms. Barracks’s Facebook group.
“I could use some improvement on my braids, so I decided to sign up for the class,” she added.
For Kendra Cole, 35, a publicist from Chicago, having the ability to teach her daughters, Cali, 2, and Reign, 7 months, protective styles to keep their hair healthy was reason enough to take the class.
“On a practical level, as a working mom, I don’t have the time to do my daughter’s hair every day, so learning how to braid is essential to my everyday life,” Ms. Cole said.
Ms. Barracks said she learned at age 12 how to braid from a book she borrowed from a friend.
“If I could learn from a book at 12, then anybody at least 12 and over can figure it out from a live video,” Ms. Barracks said. “I am going in and helping you step by step.”
