A common phrase to hear in the black community is “your hair is your crown.” I heard it as a child and the phrase is still used today. This sentiment can now be seen in children’s books such as “Your Hair Is Your Crown” by Tiffany Mongé, “My Hair Is My Crown” by Sunny Mai, “My Locs Are My Crown” by Sierra F and “I Love My Natural Crown” by King Ki’el. Each book illustrates an African American child with their natural hair in various hairstyles. It is meant to teach children to love their hair and take pride in it because it is beautiful. It may seem unnecessary to tell a child to love their hair, but if you take a look at the history of how black hair has been treated you can see the importance of telling Black children this.

This mistreatment of Black hair dates back to the transatlantic slave trade. One of the first things that slave traders did to the millions of African American men, women and children was to shave off their hair. They did this as a way to erase the identities of the people they stole, seeing as the different styles that they had symbolized that person’s tribe, social status and family history. Slave traders saw how important their hair was to their identity and took it away from them. When Black people were freed, they were heavily encouraged to straighten their hair through the promotion of the hot comb and relaxers. They were told that it would make them beautiful and that it was easier to maintain.

Those who embraced their natural hair were sometimes discriminated against because of their hair. A prime example of this would be Beverly Jenkins, who was told that she could never represent Blue Cross Shield because of her afro. She filed a lawsuit and won. It allowed afros to be protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is ridiculous that there had to be a legal case because of the way someone styled their hair. However, examining the way Black hair has been treated in recent years, I am grateful for Jenkins’ efforts.

In a 2022 New York Times article, six children spoke out against hair discrimination. One story includes a five-year-old boy, who came to school with his hair braided in a style he loved. When he got to school an administrator called his mom saying that he had broken a school policy that banned students from wearing braids, locs and twists. This policy is unbelievable because those are the most common protective hairstyles within the black community. This only leaves him with two options: cut his hair or have an afro. If he wore his hair in an afro, they likely would deem it as “too distracting,” especially if he had a lot of hair.

The story from 9-year-old Ava Russell, shows that this could be a response. When she wanted to show off her curls, her teacher told her it was a distraction and made her mother pick her up. That was in early 2020; she ended up switching schools because of how upsetting it was for her. Lastly, there is fourteen-year-old  Kimora Sajous’s seventh grade picture day story. She was told she could not take pictures because her hair was in Bantu knots. When she straightened her hair, she was able to take the picture. She revealed that it gave her self-image issues and it took her a long time to see her hair as beautiful.

Some incidents have gone viral, such as the video in 2018 of a Black high school wrestler getting his haircut with a pair of scissors because the white referee told him to cut his locs or forfeit the match. The most recent viral story is in 2023 with Darrly George. He was suspended for more than a month for wearing a protective hairstyle, locs, because it went against the school’s dress code.

Based on these stories, Black children need to be taught to love their hair because there is, clearly, a history of Black people being mistreated because of their hair. It could also help avoid situations like Sajous who had self-imagine issues and had to learn to see her hair as beautiful, or Russell who had to change schools. There is no telling what the future holds, but it is better to establish and cement the idea that hair no matter how it grows or is styled is beautiful.