Clinton Stanley Jr. was excited about his first day at a new private school in suburban Orlando, Florida.
His father, Clinton Sr., thought A Books Christian Academy, with its small class sizes and rigorous curriculum, was the perfect fit for his 6-year-old.
But the child never made it inside his first grade classroom. The father and son arrived only to have an administrator stop them at the entrance and demand the boy leave to cut his hair. The administrator cited a school policy banning dreadlocks.
The rejection confused the outgoing boy, who’d been raised to express himself and asked for locks when he was 4 years old so he could be like his godfather, an NFL player.
“It still bothers me,” Stanley says, his voice shaking with sadness. “It was a hurtful experience.”
Clinton Jr. is not alone. Black people young, old and in between have been rejected from jobs, schools and other public places because of the texture and style of their hair.
But that’s changing. Several states and cities this year have passed or proposed laws banning policies that penalize people of color for wearing natural curls, dreadlocks, twists, braids and other hairstyles that embrace their cultural identity.
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