HARLINGEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — In honor of Black History Month, ValleyCentral is featuring a presentation captivating the culture of the black community.

The presentation will feature stories of those who faced adversity and those becoming the change within the community.

Honoring Black History: Sharing Our Stories will air on:

  • CBS 4: 4 p.m. on Jan. 29
  • NBC 23: 6 p.m. on Feb. 4

In Edinburg, one loctician is revolutionizing how to create dreadlock hairstyles. Meesh Duru, owner and founder of Dread House, specializes in styling and maintaining dreadlocks and twists for clients with all hair types.

With dreadlocks being a tedious hairstyle to complete Duru needed a way to speed up the process.

“My hands was hurting really bad doing dreadlocks by hand,” Duru told ValleyCentral. “I was doing too many people’s dreadlocks and so I was trying to figure out a way to make doing dreadlocks faster.” 

Duru found no effective tools on the market to help with the process, so decided to take it upon herself to create an instant locs machine.

Duru’s instant hair crocheting machine has sped up the creation of dreadlocks up to three times faster than if the locs were done by hand.

“I put my heart into this and to making these products and services to cater to our hair this texture of hair,” Duru said. “This is going to revolutionize the way that we do dreadlocks.” 

Duru hopes to reach as many people through her instant locs machine, as well as given them a more comfortable and positive dreadlock journey no matter their hair type.

The U.S. Small Business Administration is taking initiative to make sure African-American entrepreneurs know they are supported by the Government.

Administrator for S.B.A., Ted James stated over the years there has been a huge trend of entrepreneurship in the black community.

Free resources such as business counseling and technical assistance are available through small business development centers, James added.

The score program is also available to what James calls the underestimated community.

In effort to earn trust and provide assistance, James said the S.B.A. has increased women’s business centers in historically black colleges and universities.

“Let’s be honest, there are high numbers in the black community who don’t trust government, right? So, when you hear, hey, I’m going to call the SBA, to hear about all these resources, there are so many that don’t trust government is going to be there for them,” James said. “So, putting these small business development centers on the campus of historically black colleges, gives a trusted voice gives a trusted friend to help navigate that.”

There are S.B.A. three locations in the Rio Grande Valley. The S.B.A. locations are in Edinburg, Harlingen and Brownsville.

Black History Month is celebrated from Feb. 1 through March 1 and is to pay tribute to those who struggled with adversity throughout U.S. history.