A new television mini-series charting the life of black hair mogul Madam CJ Walker, who rose to prominence in the early 20th century, will highlight the identity politics around afro hair.

“It’s important to take a look at how our thinking about ourselves and our hair has evolved during the last 100 years,” says A’Lelia Bundles, Walker’s great-granddaughter, who wrote the biography on which the four-part drama, starring Octavia Spencer as Walker, is based. “We need to know that our ancestors were grappling with self-confidence in a world that favoured European standards of beauty and dismissed African facial features, skin colour and hair texture.”

The March 20 release on Netflix of Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam CJ Walker, comes at a time when black hair is still considered provocative and even lawless, with many cases of black pupils being excluded from mainstream education for sporting braids, afros and other styles. In Texas Deandre Arnold was told his dreadlocks violated his school’s dress code and he wouldn’t be able to walk at his high school graduation. While in Hackney in London, Ruby Williams was sent home from school because her afro was considered too distracting to the other pupils.

Many black women have felt the need to hide their natural hair in order to progress Damilola DK Fashola

“That a black schoolgirl’s hair, in its completely natural state, made headlines at all demonstrates that misunderstandings persist,” says Wofai JE, the executive director of Initiative.dkf who last year created Scalped, an outdoor theatre piece about afro hair.

Johanna Yaovi, from the natural hair organisation the Curl Talk Project, said: “Black hair is still being systematically policed. As long as afro hair isn’t seen as the norm, I am afraid these types of situations will continue to happen.”

Professor and author Carol Tulloch says that the prejudice against black hair can be dated back to the slave era. “The natural hair of slaves was often referred to as ‘wool’: a derogatory term that, on the one hand, referenced the texture of black hair and on the other suggested the animality of slaves,” she explains. This racism persisted across the Atlantic too. “Between 1889 and 1914 Lux soap advertisements claimed that the product could care well for all kinds of materials and ‘wont (sic) shrink wool’ which was represented by a black male child sitting in a tub, his hair covered in a mound of white suds.”

The list of crimes against black hair continues to this day. At the 2015 Oscars Zendaya was mocked for wearing dreadlocks, while more recently America’s Got Talent host Gabrielle Union was told that her hair was “too black” by the show’s producers. “Many black women have felt the need to hide their natural hair in order to progress at some point in another life,” says Initiative.dkf’s Damilola DK Fashola.

Oscar-winning short Hair Love, about a father who learns to style his daughter’s afro hair. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

In February, Hair Love – a film about a father who learns how to style his daughter’s afro hair for the first time while her mother is in hospital – won the Oscar for best animated short. During the acceptance speech, writer/director Matthew A Cherry said: “Hair Love was done because … we wanted to normalise black hair. There’s a very important issue that’s out there, the Crown act, and if we can help get this passed in all 50 states we can help stop stories like Deandre Arnold from happening.”

The Crown Act (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) is a California law prohibiting discrimination against hair at work. “This is the first major legislation seeking to make it illegal for employers to discriminate against individuals, black women in particular,” says Dr Kimberly R Moffitt, associate professor of Africana Studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

A Change.org campaign to bring a version of the act to the UK by amending the Equality Act has been started by Don’t Touch My Hair author Emma Dabiri. Hackney council has said it is going to make guidance on afro hairstyles more inclusive following the Ruby Williams case. “The Crown Act (in the UK) would be good to avoid any further misunderstandings or incidents, especially for young people who are finding themselves,” says Wofai JE. “Just as there are acts and laws to protect people from race-based discrimination, it follows that hair is protected too.”

For A’Lelia Bundles her great-grandmother’s story has renewed resonance for 2020. “CJ’s message was about hair and haircare, but ultimately it was about political and personal power.” How would she have felt about the Crown Act? “I truly think she would have helped fund the lobbying effort.”