Founded in 2010, the mission of Pretty Brown Girl is to encourage girls to celebrate the beautiful shades of brown all over the world; while inspiring positive self esteem and confidence.

The concept was born through several situations that Sheri and Corey Crawley, experienced with their two daughters Laila and Aliya. For Aliya’s fourth birthday, Sheri planned a birthday party at the popular American Girl Place. They invited four girls for an afternoon brunch and each girl was given an opportunity to choose a doll from the large selection of dolls with whom they wanted to join them at the table.  Not one of the beautiful brown girls chose a brown-skinned doll.  Sheri was literally pleading with the young ladies ”What’s wrong with the Pretty Brown Girl doll?” She was shocked because each of the girls were surrounded by positive role models from their parents, teachers and their community.  That by itself is not enough in a world that is bombarded with messages of beauty that rarely edify women and girls of color in an attractive light.

Shortly after that experience, the family relocated from Chicago to a small all suburb of Detroit, where the population of African Americans is only 1% . After the girls were enrolled in school, Sheri observed changes in her oldest daughter’s behavior. Laila lost her bubbly personality and became more withdrawn and timid during school hours. She began to make comments that she wanted her hair to look like that of her classmates as opposed to her own beautifully textured hair. As Sheri began sharing her observations with other moms, she noticed that other families were having similar experiences.