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With These Hands
A Country Girl Came To Town
(22 Reviews)
With These Hands is an inspiring story of the life of Selena, who as a young girl in 1941 arrived in the big windy City of Chicago on a bus from Memphis Tennessee by way of Clarksdale Mississippi with all that she owned in her two hands. Her new baby girl in one arm, her suitcase and handmade quilt was in her other arm. Away from her mother, family and everything considered home for the first time in her young life Selena had no idea what the future held for her…but God knew
As a young newlywed, new mother in a new town, from cooking all of her meals in her one granite pan to becoming a successful business woman owning multiple beauty and hair weev salons in Chicago and Detroit. Selena who began as a “kitchen beautician went from charging fifty cents a head in her kitchen to charging hundreds and then thousands per head in her professional salons. Teaching and sharing her craft of hair weev technology with cosmetologists all over the world exposed Selena’s Perseverance which has always been a part of Selena’s nature way back then and has served as an inspiration to many others ever since.
Testimonial
Hear from Our Satisfied Readers The Joy Our Books Bring
Reader
I started to read this book and was immediately captivated by the main character. It's beautifully and truthfully written so much so that I could easily envision this as a mini series. A true piece of Chicago Americana awaits you!
Reader
I enjoyed reading about Selena's successful career and how fancy she dressed and the beautiful cars she had. Some of the stories about the pimps and their ladies were interesting. I'm just waiting for the continuance book that goes with the ending of this book. Nice story and the author is a wonderful beautiful person inside and out.
Reader
What an awesome book about an extraordinary lady! Miss Selena is proof that there is NO excuse not to succeed. She was born in the rural south when Jim Crow and segregation was the law of the land but she didn't allow that to stop her from having ambition. She had a child and married in her teens but she was still part of the Great Migration.
Reader
Love the Book! I know the author, Mrs Bonnie Taylor-Williams personally and she is Beautiful inside and out!!!! Excellent Reading *********** 10 STARS!!!
Reader
I thoroughly enjoyed this read! This read enlightened me to the lifestyles of Blacks in the South. The main character, Selena was a strong black woman with exceptional aspirations. I really admired her strong desire to pull herself up by the "bootstraps" so to speak and venture out and eventually become a very successful, well-known entrepreneur. I was disappointed because the book ended just as I was really getting into the read. I'm looking forward to reading the continued version.
Reader
This book brought back an era in Chicago history where being a successful African-American entrepreneur was not just a dream but a reality!
Reader
Bonnie, I truly enjoyed reading your book. You are an amazing writer. I know you are so proud of your grandmother Selena. She is truly a proverbs 31 woman. I can’t wait to read your next book.
Reader
With These Hands is more than a book… It’s A Legacy.
With These Hands Triology
A Country Girl Takes The Town
(0 Reviews)
With These Hands: A Country Girl Takes the Town is the sequel, part two of the trilogy that began with the award-winning debut, With These Hands: A Country Girl Came to Town.
This book continues Selena’s story as a country girl who came from the depths of the Mississippi migration and transitioned into a Chicago sensation in the beauty and Hair Weev industry. Selena not only became a household name in the city of Chicago, but her reputation spread worldwide as the Hair Weev Queen and the Weev Doctor, servicing clients from the U.S. to Africa (Nigeria and Ghana) and teaching the money-making craft of Hair Weev Technology to students internationally.
Not only were her mother and her three children involved, but this installment also continues the story as it expands to include her grandchildren, generations of beauty and Hair Weev Technology birthed through a country girl’s dream.
Read how Selena successfully branded herself and her businesses as a safe haven, a source of inspiration and inclusion, while securing her financial freedom (“her bag”) and teaching other cosmetology enthusiasts to do the same…all before cell phones and the internet.
Proving that when there’s a will, God will make a way.
Foreword
With These Hands is a rags-to-riches story that shares the richness of the prodigies that came from The Great Migration. I’m amazed at how generations of Black people with little to no resources traveled north for opportunity with nothing but a dream. They built publishing and hair care manufacturing companies, funeral homes, insurance and newspaper empires…and yes invented enhancing, time saving techniques for the mid twentieth century new thing… Hair Weev, what we now refer to as hair extensions.
With These Hands is the journey of Selena Williams, whose style and ingenuity changed the game in the hair industry. Those of us who experience success as entrepreneurs, whether as start-ups or generationally, also experience challenges. Imagine how tough it was when Selena was building her empire. She was Black, a woman and playing a big game in a big city. But nothing was bigger than her dreams and her tenacity to make them come true. Selena is another hidden figure that shines as a glowing example of a 20th-century inventor, innovator and success story.
Every (Hair) stylist on earth should know her name.
Melody Spann-Cooper
Chair and Chief Executive Officer
Midway Broadcasting Corporation
WVON1690 VON TV IHEART RADIO
Blurb
In this sequel to With These Hands, Taylor-Williams, continues the riveting saga of Selena Williams, a Black woman who shaped her own destiny and influenced many others in the mid-20th Century through her pioneering Weev technology and hair salon. The inspiring story of Ms. Williams is a must read for anyone interested in the history of Black women in the beauty business, in the Great Migration, and in Chicago cultural history. Bonnie Taylor-Williams must be commended for shining a light on this tremendous legacy.
Kelly Elaine Navies, Museum Specialist, Oral History, NMAAHC
A true story about the author's grandmother, from her beginning and upbringing in Clarksdale, Mississippi, to her travels to Chicago, where she settles down and opens her hair salon and evens teaches a new technique to other cosmetologist's.