Free braiding stations, small-business vendors, and a live reading from a published poet turned a stretch of Wakefield into a celebration of Black hair on July 11. Nefer Bookcafe, the community bookshop near the Wakefield train terminal, presented The Crown Affair, which organizers described as an all-day immersive community experience celebrating Black hair and books.
The festival was the brainchild of a partnership between the bookcafe and Becoming the CEO Network, according to the Bronx Times. Sabriena Campbell, who is chief of staff for Assemblymember Chantel Jackson and founder of Becoming the CEO Network, proposed bringing a first-of-its-kind Atlanta-style hair event to the Bronx. Campbell reportedly met Nefer Bookcafe owner Lonna Dawson while searching for a venue to host one of her network's quarterly mixers, and the collaboration grew from there.
Becoming the CEO Network began as a podcast in 2019 and has since grown into an ecosystem of networking events, per the same account, with its gatherings aimed at building community, educating, empowering and energizing people. Campbell said she wants to rewrite the narrative about the Bronx and hopes to make The Crown Affair an annual fixture while expanding its reach in future years.
A Bookcafe Built as a Bronx Third Space
Nefer Bookcafe sits at 694 East 241st Street, and it officially opened in July 2025 after Dawson launched a $20,000 crowdfunding campaign to build what she envisioned as a community third space in the northeast Bronx, according to a Facebook post cited in earlier reporting. Dawson has said she created the cafe after feeling out of place in corporate workplace culture, and the shop has since been recognized by the Bronx Times as a vital gathering spot in Wakefield, one designed to offer residents a space for literature, conversation and cultural reflection away from commercial hurry.
That mission fits into a broader rebound for Bronx bookselling. The borough lost its only Barnes and Noble when the Bay Plaza store closed in 2016, leaving 1.4 million residents without a single general independent bookstore until The Lit. Bar opened in Mott Haven in 2019, as reported by The Science Survey. Nefer Bookcafe is part of the newer wave of community-driven shops that followed. Nefer is also becoming a hub for fostering creativity, and the team behind it aims to celebrate a new theme at the bookcafe each quarter, with creative director Kephera Ife working alongside Dawson to shape those programs.
Braids, Books and a Live Reading
The festival featured Harlem-native poet, actress and author Jaylene Clark Owens, who joined Campbell for a public conversation about Black hair and gave a live reading of her debut picture book, *A Black Girl and Her Braids*. Owens is an AUDELCO and Barrymore Award-winning performer whose book, published by Penguin Random House in January 2026 and illustrated by Brittney Bond, grew out of a spoken-word poem honoring the power, beauty and meaning of Black hair, according to Blavity. That poem was reportedly inspired by a visit to a Philadelphia hair salon before it was adapted into the children's book.
Attendees also browsed The Beautiful Black Hair Show, an art exhibit and sale celebrating Black hair through books, painting and sculpture, and children who came through The Crown Affair received gift bags stuffed with stationery, Bluetooth speakers, AirPods and pool toys. The bags also included a free copy of *A Black Girl and Her Braids* along with signed advance copies of new children's and young adult titles, courtesy of donations from the American Booksellers Association, the not-for-profit trade group supporting independent bookstores nationwide. Dawson, an ABA member, attended the association's 14th annual Children's Institute in Schaumburg, Illinois, in June, an event that drew 350 independent booksellers nationwide, per the same account. She said the ABA supports its members and understands the role independent bookstores play in their communities.
Small Businesses and a Braiding Camp Join In
Vendors at the festival promoted beauty products, wellness and cultural traditions alongside the day's braiding stations and a braiding camp connected to Campbell's braiding camp at the Northeast Bronx YMCA. Among them was Dominique Renee, owner of D Flora Beauty, who used her table to promote Black hair, self-care and clean beauty. Teacher Judith Bennett, who has a Jamaican background, attended to promote Black culture and literacy, according to the Bronx Times report.
Dawson said The Crown Affair represents deep Bronx love, and she hopes attendees walked away with inner confidence, self-esteem and an empowered sense of identity. She has said she wanted the bookcafe to promote Black hair as part of its broader mission, and she wants people to experience a sense of belonging when they walk through Nefer's doors.
A Local Event Rooted in Statewide Protections
The festival's celebration of natural hair lands in a neighborhood where the demographics make the theme especially resonant. Roughly 60 percent of residents in Bronx Community District 12, which covers Wakefield, Williamsbridge and Woodlawn, identify as Black or African American with a prominent Afro-Caribbean immigrant population, according to a 2026 demographic report from the Bronx Borough President's Office.
New York became the second state in the nation to enact the CROWN Act in July 2019, amending the state's Human Rights Law to explicitly bar workplace and school discrimination based on natural hair textures and protective styles like braids, locs and twists, per the National Law Review. Months earlier, the New York City Commission on Human Rights had become the first municipal agency in the country to issue formal guidance declaring hair discrimination against Black residents a violation of the city's Human Rights Law, targeting grooming codes that banned Afros or cornrows, as detailed by Littler.
As of mid-2025, 27 states and Washington, D.C. had passed their own CROWN Act laws, according to GovDocs, though federal passage of the CROWN Act continues to face hurdles in Congress. A 2023 CROWN Coalition workplace study cited in the same report found that Black women's hair is 2.5 times more likely to be perceived as unprofessional, and more than 20 percent of Black women ages 25 to 34 said they had been sent home from work because of their hairstyle. Against that backdrop, a free afternoon of braiding stations and storytime in Wakefield reads as more than a neighborhood mixer, organizers suggested, but as a small, local answer to a much larger fight.
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