Exploring the History of Black Church Hats

Growing up in the Black church, Kyra March was surrounded by love – and big, beautiful hats.

Hats of every color, shape and size. Some with feathers and ornate fabrics. Others bejeweled and bowed. 

The elder women in her South Carolina African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregation, including her grandmother, wore them proudly, regally, said March, 24, a Rutgers doctoral student who is working toward a degree in African American history and women’s and gender history with a certificate in public humanities.

So, when she was presented with the opportunity to curate a local exhibit that tells the story of a collection of 25 church hats donated by a local congregation of Black women, March, who earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard, dove headlong into the project.

Nick Romanenko/Rutgers University

Featuring headwear donated by women from Second Calvary Baptist Church in Hopewell, N.J., March created the exhibit “The Head That Wears The Crown,” which opened Sept. 20, at the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (SSAAM) in Skillman, N.J., that runs through Juneteenth weekend.

“I think this exhibit provides an opportunity for Black women to feel connected, to see themselves, see their families, see stories that relate to them in ways that sometimes we don’t always see,” said March, who was recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation for her work.

“There are so many different layers to it. Material culture is so important. I think sometimes we think, this is just a dress or a hat, but there are so many different histories tied to material objects.”

The collection includes portraits of women and girls from the local community and museum staff wearing the donated hats and posing on the grounds of the SSAAM, which includes sites that have been home to African Americans in the Sourlands region of New Jersey for generations. The collection of hats, which spanned the 20^th century, represent a wide array of styles over the decades.

“Some people made their hats. My grandmother, she has a collection she bought at the top of her closet,” March said. “It just depends on the person, their skill and finances and what they had access to.”

The striking images paired with text panels written by March detailing the historical significance of church hats and Second Calvary Baptist’s congregation, feel at home among the pews and altar of the museum, which was once home to the former Mt. Zion AME Church.

“If we would have just focused on the present day and women who wear church hats, we’d miss all that history. If we just focused on when the church first started, we would have missed the continuation of the adornment practice,” she said. “So being able to have this space and the hats and community members and museum staff with particular ties to these locations, it was a full-circle moment with the hats as the through line.”

When originally presented with the project, March considered focusing on how church hats are tied to diasporic headwear, such as a gele, a traditional head tie worn by Nigerian women for weddings and other religious occasions. But as she dug deeper into reconstruction-era journals and images during her research, March was drawn to what may be considered the distant cousin of church hats – turbans.

“I saw images of groups of women on a Civil War-era refugee camp wearing turbans, and one of Sojourner Truth wearing a turban, and I thought, it’s making sense now. It’s not just about hats, it’s about the evolution,” said March. “Whether tignons (headscarves) worn by free Black women in the 18^th century, turbans in the 19^th century or church hats in the 20^th Century, headwear was used for religious reasons, personal reasons and style.”

To make it difficult to differentiate free Black women from those enslaved, Tignon Laws were enacted during the 18^th century, forcing free Black women to wear the headscarves. However, in an act of defiance, many women turned their tignon into expressions of personal style by using decorative fabrics and knots.

“I see tignons as a clear indication of the resistance against oppressive Black laws. They said, ‘We are going to make them their own,’ ” March said, on the connection between tignons and church hats. “So maybe that creativity is rooted in the tradition. Maybe they would have appreciated the designs of the head wraps or hats or turbans or handkerchiefs. Maybe that was born out of their response.”

Kristin O'Brassill-Kulfan, director of Rutgers Public Humanities Internship, commended March's exhibit for fostering discussion about vital social histories.

“Kyra is doing innovative, community-engaged public history work,” said O'Brassill-Kulfan. “She found creative ways to link the research she's doing as part of her doctoral training with the goals and mission of the museum she's collaborated with as part of her internship.”

March's overall goal in curating the exhibit was for Black women to see themselves in the images and words on display, she said, and be inspired to continue the tradition in their congregations.  

“Ultimately, I want people to leave understanding the power of Black women's headwear to their personal and spiritual lives, understand the pushback they received, and learn more about the tradition of headwear,” March said. “Hopefully they will carry it on themselves or pass the knowledge on to others around them so that it doesn't die out.”