Having Dreadlocks #WhileBlack

It’s the time of year when parents are rushing around, trying to get their children organized for their first day back at school. What should have been a joyous first day turned into a nightmare for one 6-year-old who was turned away from a private Christian school in Orlando, because of his natural hair.

Clinton Stanley Jr. was informed by the school that he could not start first grade until he got a haircut. His father filmed the interaction with the school, which was shared via his Facebook live.

This story feels far too familiar in 2018. C.J.’s father sensed that the banning of his son could have been racially motivated. The school’s administrator Sue Book at the A Book’s Christian Academy, which is located in Apopka, Florida maintains that short-hair policy has been around since the school opened in 1971 and denies any racial motives.

“No dreads…All of our boys have short hair,” said Book. “It’s the style of hair. We don’t allow it. We never have.”

She then mentions that more than 95 percent of the students at the school are Black. CJ’s father still feels the policy is biased.

“I respect their rules, but it’s not right,” Clinton Stanley Sr. told the Orlando Sentinel. “Allow kids to come as they are. You are a Christian school. In the Bible it says, come as you are. You deny a kid an education on his hair?”

The Stanley family has decided not to fight the policy. They have enrolled in Lovell Elementary School.