Alexander Falade is a 23-year-old Nigerian-American man who grew up in a strict traditional household in Prince George's County, Md. During his childhood his parents forbade him from growing his hair out, fearing that he would be looked at as a "bad kid".
"Now that I'm a little bit older, I can make my own decisions about my hair. My parents still don't approve," Said Falade "To them, anything that isn't almost a bald head is unprofessional."
Falade's parent's concerns are not baseless. Black people have been historically discriminated against for a myriad of reasons, including but not limited to hair styles and hair texture.
What is The Crown Act?
In 2019 The CROWN (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Act was created to outlaw racial discrimination based on natural hairstyles. This past June marks five years since California made history, becoming the first state to pass this act.
As of November 2024, the CROWN Act has been passed in over 25 states.
It’s unclear, however, how effective the legislation really has been at protecting Black people from hair discrimination.
The Significance of Your Crown:
Across different societies, hair has been associated with status, identity, and belonging. Hair is something that can carry immense symbolic weight while also allowing individuals to express themselves in any way they see fit.
"The larger honest conversation is that there was a day and time, and some might say that day and time still exist, where the standard for being civilized or professional was the white male standard so to be professional to be civilized you had to look more like white people." Said Edwin T. Johnson, Chair of Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture.
In the last decade there have been steps in the right direction to change the standard of professionalism and there are more young men and women who are growing out and wearing their natural hair. But, even with things like the CROWN Act set in place, there are still institutions that find loopholes to still discriminate against hairstyles.
Limits to the law:
Darryl George and his mother, Darresha, outside of Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas. Michael Wyke/Associated Press
In 2023, Darryl George, a Black high school student in Texas was suspended for more than two weeks for wearing locs that hung below his ears. It has been over a year since the initial incident and George has still not been able to attend classes. In February 2024, a Texas judge decided that George’s punishment by the school was appropriate since the school provided hair length as the reason for suspension and the CROWN Act does not mention hair length.
“It’s put a lot of emotions on me you know, anger, sadness it is it just makes me feel angry, very angry,” said George, speaking to The News Movement. “Throughout all these years, throughout all the fighting for the black history that we’ve already done, we still have to go through this again and again and again.”
Darryl George has not attended school in over a year.
The CROWN Act in the Corporate World:
Kayla Ray, 22, a DEI Communications Analyst at JPMorgan, said her experience at the company has been great despite initially worrying that wearing her natural hair would be an issue.
“JP Morgan Chase is over 200 years old and while it’s praised for being inclusive now, it definitely wasn’t always that way,” said Ray “I wore my afro but I was hesitant to wear long braids or extensions because I wasn’t sure how I’d be perceived. I spoke with a black woman on my team honestly about it. She said the CROWN Act really made a difference here.”
Not everyone finds corporate America as welcoming.
Kimberly Frazier, 32, is an associate attorney at Miles & Stockbridge law firm in Baltimore, Md. Frazier has worked in various law firms since 2016. Working in a field that is dominated by white men, she has always felt like there were stricter guidelines on how she could wear her hair.
“I have pretty much always felt the need to wear my hair a certain way,” said Frazier “Braids were seen as less than, weaves were better.”
Since the CROWN Act’s passage in Maryland in 2020, Frazier does feel protected wearing her natural hair, but she still does not want to “do too much.”
While most of the focus of the CROWN act has been on women, the law also protects men.
Bocar Jallow, Software Engineer at United States Department of Defense, has shoulder length locs that he has been growing for five years.
“I was worried about it when I first got there, I noticed that most people do not look like me and the ones who do, don’t have my hair or long hair at all… I don’t think it plays a part in my mind now that I've been there for a few months,” he said.