CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — "Where my people at?"--were the exact words from Kendra Duncan on a Facebook post addressing a longtime need in Corpus Christi.
"I had been here in Corpus working for about a month and I wasn't seeing people who looked like me," Duncan said. "I said 'Why not? Lets just take a chance post the comment and see what happens'...and the response was overwhelming."
Duncan didn't have these kind of challenges just months prior when she was living in Georgia.
"Something as simple as just finding someone to do your hair, is important in the African American community and so in Atlanta, that wasn't an issue, ever, and I never thought I would be somewhere that I would have that challenge," she said. "I'm used to being a minority in places, but this was a little bit different."
The post came across Desiree Gee's timeline and she was inspired to make a change.
"I was actually in a Facebook messaging group with about I think 8 or 9 other Black women when we saw that post and we saw how well it was received," Gee said. "We were laughing in the group we were like 'Where did all these Black people come from? Oh my God.' And I was like oh I should start a Facebook group."
And that was the start of something new, a Facebook Group called "Black Corpus Community". They formed the online group on Jan. 15, and since then have added hundreds of members.
"As a Black woman I know, we look for our community more often than not," Gee said.
She is a long way from home in Buffalo, New York, and that safe space that she knew so well seemed almost nonexistent in Corpus Christi.
"My goal for it is to just have a safe space for us because if somebody post in another group and they say 'Hey I'm looking for somebody that's well versed in African American hair', you are going to have sometimes hateful comments, like, 'Well why only African American hair? Everybody's hair is curly' or something like that," Gee said. "So, it's a safe space for us to be able to commune together."
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