CROWN Act Day: It's all about hair-raising awareness
MIAMI - July 3rd is National CROWN Act Day. It's a day to raise awareness for men and women who wear their hair naturally or even curly.
In twenty states including Florida, it is legal to discriminate against employees and students because of how they chose to wear their hair.
Freedoms to wear your hair, as it grows out of one's head isn't always acceptable. Here at CBS News Miami, we have the freedom to wear our hair how we want. In the TV news industry, that's not always the case.
Chelsea Jones is CBS News Miami's Weekend Anchor. You can catch her during the week and on the weekends. She says, "My mom gave me a perm at 4 because my hair is super thick."
She says trying to manage her natural hair in this Florida heat and humidity, is challenging. "We have to be on all the time, that I do partial sew-ins most of the time to give it more of a natural look. Because my hair is so natural, it'll revert real quick to like kinky curly."
So it's braids for the summer. Chelsea says, "prior to here wearing braids is not something that was allowed. Allowed is strong, but allowed."
In the State of Florida, workers can still be told how to style and can be fired over how they wear their hair. A bill was introduced last year to prevent hair discrimination. It died after just three months.
On the federal level, a similar bill passed the House but it died in the Senate.
Nikiya Carrero is also a CBS News Miami reporter. "This is who I am and who I want viewers to see me as because this is my culture, this is who I am. My hair is me."
Cabrera is Afro-Latina. She says embracing her curls is about community. "Growing up in Miami, there weren't a lot of women who looked like me on air. So I want to make sure that the little girls watching at home, they understand the importance of wearing your natural hair, embracing who you are and loving who you are."
Dessa Bush is a licensed cosmetologist and beauty expert for over three decades. "I feel good to see African American women wearing the styles that are that wearing natural styles that long ago weren't accepted."
Bush offers this advice "If you're on Tv, I think whether you're wearing locks or your hair is braided, I think it should be decent and look professional and I think that makes it more acceptable when it's tasteful."
CROWN is an acronym it stands for Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural hair.
In 2024 there have been no attempts by the State of Florida or even on the federal level to get any CROWN laws passed.
Meanwhile, the initial CROWN Act prohibiting discrimination based on hair style and texture in the workplace and in school was signed five years ago in California.