BAYTOWN, Texas — Two dozen protesters gathered near a Texas superintendent’s home on Wednesday to support a Black teen who has been suspended for most of the school year over the length of his dreadlocks.
Hairstylists, children and activists filled a neighborhood entrance in Baytown, about 26 miles east of Houston, chanting “Justice for Darryl George” and carrying signs with hashtags like #DoesMyHairOffendYou and #MyHairIsNotAThreat.
They gathered near the home of Barbers Hill Independent School District Superintendent Greg Poole, one day before a judge is set to hear arguments to determine whether the district can continue to punish George for refusing to change his hairstyle. George and his family have refused to cut his hair, setting off a monthslong battle between the family and the school district.
Poole did not immediately return a request for comment.
Protesters set up displays of synthetic braiding hair and carried photos of George and other children with dreadlocks. People passing by in pickup trucks drove by the demonstration, shouting, “Go home!”
Janaie Roberts, a loctician, set up a salon chair during the demonstration and styled protesters’ dreadlocks in a show of support. “I’m an advocate for natural hair. This is how we express ourselves, so it’s not fair for us to be held back,” she said. “Just like we have freedom of speech, we have the freedom to be ourselves.”
Roberts said that if she could speak to George, she’d tell him he’s “doing the right thing.”
“You have done nothing wrong and I’m so proud of you for standing up for your rights,” she added.
George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, has been in in-school suspension or at an off-site disciplinary program for most of the school year. His ordeal started in August, when school officials said that George’s hair, which he wears in neatly twisted dreadlocks away from his face and neck, violates a district dress code regulating the length of boys’ hair.
“There is nothing that interferes with learning when it comes to our children’s hair,” said Ellen Reddy, an advocate with the Mississippi Coalition to End Corporal Punishment, an organization working to end physical punishment in Mississippi public schools. “This is about policing Black hair, Black bodies, and it has to stop. Our children have a right to wear their hair in natural hairstyles. That’s all we’re saying.”
George’s family has said the district is violating the state’s newly implemented CROWN Act, which prohibits race-based hair discrimination at work, school and in housing facilities in the state. However, the district has held that the law does not address hair length.
The district filed a lawsuit in September, requesting that a judge clarify whether that’s the case. Last month, State District Judge Chap Cain III in Anahuac ordered the case to go to trial.
“The Texas CROWN Act protects hair texture and the wearing of braids, twists, and locs. Those with agendas wish to make the CROWN Act a blanket allowance of student expression. Again, we look forward to this issue being legally resolved,” Barbers Hill Independent School District Superintendent Greg Poole said in a statement shared with NBC News earlier this week.
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