Black History Month Campaign reinforces #RootedInScience as Foundational Link to Black Heritage and Black Hair Care

P&G’s US Multicultural Hair Care team just launched the #CrownsofHeritage program presented by Pantene Gold Series and Head & Shoulders Royal Oils. Enlisting help from AfricanAncestry.com, the work brings to life in a new way the importance of heritage and lineage in the understanding of and celebration of Black hair in our country.

As brands that are #RootedinScience, we traced the DNA of the team behind the brands to launch a journey of discovery, inviting others to reflect on the missing pieces of their family history and receive an opportunity to reconnect with the African roots of their family tree. More than a dozen P&G Multicultural Brand Builders, Ambassadors, Executives and Scientists from our employee base took the AfricanAncestry.com DNA test and participated in a group reveal. All of this underpins the thorough research that goes into better serving the unique needs of coily hair, and helped our own Scientists get some clearer information on their own lineage.

“I am happy that we did this reveal together as the team behind Gold Series,” said Chiquita White, Senior Director, Hair R&D. “Even though it took us many years to get the products on the shelf, we persevered like our mothers and our foremothers persevered. This Crowns of Heritage experience reminds me what our ancestors endured and the strength that is within me. That pushes me to go further.”

Many Black Americans have limited knowledge of which country and ethnic group they are descendants. The transatlantic slave trade disconnected kidnapped people from the names, languages, rituals, traditions, and family lineages that included innovators, navigators, tribal leaders, and artists. But there is one thing that could not be stripped away that holds a missing piece of the identity puzzle for Black Americans and this is the unique DNA testing that AfricanAncestry.com provides. The mitochondrial DNA that is passed down through the X chromosome over hundreds of years holds an informative record of the history of our mother, our mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother before that. With DNA samples from over 400 ethnic groups in the database, AfricanAncestry.com was able to match each participant back to 12 different ethnic groups associated with six countries in present day West and Central Africa, highlighting the diversity that exists among what is often mistaken for a monolithic group.

“In demographic research, there is a tendency to oversimplify diversity related to Black people,” said Andrea Wilkerson, A&I Senior Director in Personal Care and My Black is Beautiful co-founder. “Revealing the different countries we are all from will help me think differently about consumer segments in our research, making sure we go deeper on the insights across the African diaspora.”

The video shows only snapshot of the transformative experience. With more content to come on this program from our My Black is Beautiful platform, the story will continue to unfold in the coming weeks.

We invite you to explore your own history. We’ve partnered with AfricanAncestry.com to make this offer available to employee families and friends who may be curious in tracing their DNA to Africa. Use the code MBIB2021 by February 15 to save $30.00.