Sonari Glinton

She's a young Black photographer, and all of these posts, Olivia Joan is trying on pieces from a heap of incredibly fancy vintage clothing on a couch.

The thing that's so striking about Olivia Jones' posts is that these are couture dresses.

So her grandmother, a Black woman, was wearing custom Chanel, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent.

This is for the wealthiest of the wealthy.

Some of the same designers who dressed Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy, and Princess Diana, dressing this Black woman from the South Side of Chicago.

Olivia Joan says it even took her a long time to clock her grandparents' importance.

It's hard to overstate how central Afrosheen was to Black culture and the rise of Black business.

And in a way, the story of the Johnson's company is how they melded those two.

Because while Olivia Joan posts her TikToks so people will understand wealthy Black entrepreneurs like her grandparents existed, for the team here at Planet Money, how they made their money, that's the story.

The money they made helped fund the Civil Rights Movement, paid for the legendary television show Soul Train, and for Jones' legendary shopping sprees.

And all that money came from Black hair care products.

Hello and welcome to Planet Money.

I'm Sonari Glenton.

Which, though they started it, they no longer own.

Today on the show, the rise and fall of Johnson products.

We're going to tell you this story in three hairstyles.

the conch, the afro, and the jerry curl.

It's the early 1950s.

World War II is just over.

And it's the second wave of the Great Migration.