From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)

Still, Sina Williams

(born: 1874) Sina Williams Still was a beauty culturist in Cincinnati, OH. She was born in Midway, KY, the daughter of Henry and Mary Williams. Sina Still completed a course in beauty culture in Louisville, KY, and moved to Cincinnati around 1900. She established her business around 1916 using the Poro System developed by Annie Turnbo Malone. (During the Civil War, Malone's parents left Kentucky and settled in Illinois. See Turnbo Family entry in the NKAA Database.) The Poro System was developed in Malone's Poro College in St. Louis, MO, where women were trained to become independent saleswomen of beauty and haircare products [source: Marcus Garvey Life and Lessons, edited by R. A. Hill and B. Bair, p. 406]. Sina Still was president of the Poro Club in Cincinnati; the club was founded and organized by Mrs. Callie Parrish in 1919. Sina Still was also a member of the Household of Ruth and a manager of the Orphan Asylum in Cincinnati. She was the wife of Louis (or Lewis) Still (b. 1870 in AL); the couple married in 1896. Sina Still had two daughters from her previous marriage. For more on Sina Still see her entry in Cincinnati's Colored Citizens, by W. P. Dabney. For more about the Poro Club in Cincinnati see Three Negro Pioneers in Beauty Culture, by G. L. Porter. For more information about the Poro System see E. M. Phillips, "Ms. Annie Malone's Poro: addressing whiteness and dressing black-bodied women," Transforming Anthropology, vol. 11, issue 2, pp. 4-17.