Flyer readers may recall a visit to Memphis last March by Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, the point of which was to add a little serious bipartisanship to a legislative effort by two Memphis Democrats, state Rep. Karen Camper and state Senator Raumesh Akbari.
Accompanied by another Memphis Democrat, state Rep. Antonio Parkinson, Sexton made the visit to promote the Crown Act, a piece of legislation that prohibited any form of public discrimination against “natural hair” and celebrated that style of coiffure as a commercial venture. Parkinson’s 2013 bill licensing free-standing Schools for Natural Hair Care in Tennessee had been a precursor.
On Wednesday of this week, The Institute of Beauty on Elmore Road, which was the first such school to open, completed a six-week intensive course and graduated 13 local teenagers with certificates entitling them to become professional natural-hair stylists, one of whom was Parkinson’s 16-year-old daughter Kierstyn.
We congratulate the proud papa, his daughter, and the other young graduates, and note that the graduation ceremony was a tangible piece of evidence that the local community intends to put the pandemic blues behind it.
