Crowning Moments: How These Black Women's Hair Journeys Changed Their Lives - NBC10 Boston

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The topic of Black hair, with its tangled history, has expanded beyond the safe space of a person's salon or barber shop and into the legal code.

A Massachusetts charter school brought the conversation to a national stage in 2017 when two Black girls were disciplined for wearing hair extensions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts filed a complaint against the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School for disciplining Black and biracial students based on a policy the school said was meant to "foster a culture that emphasizes education rather than style, fashion or materialism."

After Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey ordered the school to immediately cease enforcing its ban on braided hair extensions, the rule was removed.

In June 2019, the Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act, which outlaws racial discrimination based on natural hairstyles was born, though not in Massachusetts — it was passed in California.

Massachusetts joined in this July, when Gov. Charlie Baker signed the CROWN Act, a bill that bans bias based on hairstyles in the state.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and others pose with the just-signed CROWN Act at the State House Tuesday, July 26, 2022.

Yet the long-term effects of hair discrimination could take a while to reverse.

More than half of Black mothers say their daughters have experienced racial discrimination based on hairstyles as early as 5 years old, according to a 2021 DOVE CROWN Research Study for Girls. Black women have looked to different methods in order to conform to predominantly white standards of beauty and ensure their hair looked "professional."

But a recent study from the National Institutes of Health found that women who use chemical hair-straightening products are at a higher risk of uterine cancer than women who don't. Researchers also noted that Black women may have a higher risk due to the fact that they are more likely to use chemicals in their hair more frequently.

The CROWN Act stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. Congresswoman Marcia Fudge shares the emotional personal stories of hair discrimination that drove her to help introduce this legislation on behalf of Black women.

We reached out to successful Black professionals in the Boston area to hear about their personal journeys with hair.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass; former first lady of Massachusetts and attorney Diane Patrick; owner of Anita Kurl Salon Kandace Cummings; and NBC10 Boston Anchor Latoyia Edwards opened up about the role hair has played in their professional lives.

"I think anything that a Black woman does is ultimately filtered through a political lens," Pressley said. "It’s political, everything we do. And so there are ways in which our bodies and our hair are or criminalized, policed, but there’s also ways in which we’re policing ourselves in the sense that we’re living more restricted lives."

The women also how the perception of Black hair has changed through the generations and not letting their hair define them. Watch the entire conversation in the video above.