HIS CROWNING GLORY

“All this because of my hair?” In the 1700s, the “Negro Act” made it illegal for Black people to “dress above their condition.” In 2024 Black Americans remain stigmatized for not imitating the grooming habits that match white, European beauty values. Darryl George is a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Chambers County. Every school day since August he has suffered the punishment of forced segregation from his peers in in-school suspension for the depravity of sporting his hair in well-groomed, painstakingly pinned-up locs. He will remain in isolation indefinitely since the March 22nd trial where the white State District Judge Chap Cain III brazenly declared the school’s policy “does not prohibit nor does it discriminate against male students who wear braids, locs, or twists,” but that Mr. George must cut his to regain classroom attendance privileges. & “It feels lonely,” Mr. George said. “When you’re only stuck in one room for a whole semester it makes you feel some type of way. You see everyone else walking around talking and laughing, and you can’t do that.” The school district forbids males from wearing hair that extends beyond eyebrows, earlobes, or collars even when it’s always gathered on top...