It's an honor to be here this evening. Thank you for having me.
Today I want to talk to you about barriers that are not the result of disadvantage or
of accidents or of poor decisions. I want to talk to you about a different barrier,
one that is a direct result of how our state and local governments regulate what people
do for work and how those barriers slam the doors to opportunity for many people in a
very real way, and that we need to address them, and I hope I'll make that case to you
through my story.
In the African American culture hair braiding is part of our makeup. It's in our DNA. Many
people choose hair braiding as a way to style their hair or an outlet for creativity or
a way that's functional for our hair.
Many of you know how much easier it is to care for hair when it's braided. Braiding
has a rich history. It's a skill tradition that has been passed down from one generation
of women to another for the past 3,000 years of recorded history. Braiding is part of our
story, particularly for women.
As a little girl, my mother always braided my hair. It was a weekly ritual. It's what
we did on Saturday nights before Sunday mornings. I sat in a chair in the kitchen or I sat on
the porch or on the floor between my mother's knees and I got my hair braided.
So picture it for a moment because it was that simple and just the way it was for me
and many other African American girls and mothers across our nation.
Now, I studied psychology in college and I worked for a few years in that field, helping
to run a boy's home for troubled boys, but the more I worked and studied in that field
the more I dreamed of returning to the roots that had been so much a part of my history
growing up and of so many other African American women.
I dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur and opening and running my own hair braiding business.
The dream got my adrenaline pumping.
Now, on the other hand, my husband, and I quote, thought I had lost my mind for throwing
aside that work study and experience and trying something new, but I didn't buy into all of
that. For me, I simply went from working on the inside of one's head to working on the
outside of one's head. Of course, I never braided professionally, let alone started,
run, or opened a business, but I thought it's hair braiding and I've been around hair my
whole life. So seriously, how hard could this be? So I took some common sense steps.
Step one, learn how to braid professionally. Mother, no disrespect to you. So I found a
master hair braider in Atlanta, Georgia. I traveled 300 miles from Tupelo, Mississippi,
and I took a two-day braiding class. I thought I shouldn't have to travel that far, but it's
what I needed to do, so I did. Step one done.
Step two, practice the skills I had learned, braiding, on my mannequin until I felt comfortable
enough to work on a live person. After six months of training on a mannequin I was now
confident enough to move forward.
Step three, find out what were the state and local requirements in Mississippi that would
legally enable me to open my business. This is when my dream quickly began to turn into
a nightmare.
I discovered that in Mississippi the government required anyone wanting to pursue hair braiding
as a profession, had to have a cosmetology license. So I found this interesting because
the last time I checked, hair braiding was simply “the interweaving of three or more
strands of hair”…Freedictionary.com.
Braiding has nothing to do with cosmetology, which is all about cutting hair, using chemically
based products, doing makeup, doing nails, etc. My mother, my grandmother, and my great
grandmother all braided hair with no government oversight. But to form that tradition legally
in Mississippi I was going to have to do three things.
Number one, I was going to have to go to school for a year and a half.
Number two, I was going to have to obtain a 1,500 hour cosmetology license. Number three,
I was going to have to pay the state over $10,000.
This was going to be all in an area of training that had literally nothing to do with hair
braiding.
So I soon learned after all of this that I was not the only one in Mississippi that this
was being required of, that across the state many states and local governments required
would-be braiders to obtain a cosmetology license, and many times requiring that they
obtain a license that was over 2,000 hours' worth of training.
That actually calculates to be over a year and a half worth of training taking 40 hours
of classes that literally have nothing to do with hair braiding. That was a lot of time
and a lot of money to be spent.
Now, the vast majority of women who would be pursuing hair braiding didn't have that
type of money or time. As a matter of fact, I didn't even have that type of money, and
I was in a much better financial position than many of the young women who would be
pursuing this profession.
To make matters worse, in order to obtain a license to teach hair braiding in Mississippi,
the government would require me to take an additional 3,200 hours of classes, all again
in courses that have nothing to do with braiding.
Now, in the 3,200 classroom hours it would have taken me to obtain a license to teach
braiding I could have become licensed in all of the following occupations in Mississippi.
Emergency medical technician basic, emergency medical technician paramedic, ambulance driver,
police officer, firefighter, real estate appraiser, and hunting education instructor.
Now listen, I realize this is D.C., but I'm from Tupelo, and in Mississippi there are
hunting education instructors, and all of those occupations, not just one of those occupations,
but all of those occupations, I could have done them all and still had 600 hours left
over.
So I thought this is crazy. Who could be behind all of this? So I found out it was the board
of cosmetology, their establishment. They were the ones who were behind all of this.
So what was the deal? You had to go to cosmetology school in order to obtain these licenses.
So anyone who was wanting to braid hair as a profession would have to go to a cosmetology
school. What this meant for cosmetology schools is that cosmetology schools would be guaranteed
students, right?
Once they were guaranteed students, then basically these students became captive customers, and
so anyone wanting to do this, there was no way that you could get around it. You had
to go to a cosmetology school, you had to take the training, and you had to pay for
the training in order to become licensed. And who was on the state board of cosmetology?
You guessed it, practicing cosmetologists, not natural hair braiders.
I had to make a decision after that. Either give up on my dreams of becoming an entrepreneur
or fight back against the status quo. I decided to fight back. So I joined with the Institute
for Justice, who represented me free of charge, filing a lawsuit to break down the regulatory
walls barring aspiring entrepreneurs from entering the field. That set in motion weekly
trips to the state capital, Jackson, a seven-hour round trip from Tupelo, Mississippi.
This was all new to me, and I didn't want to fight anyone, especially the government.
All I wanted to do was to pursue my dream of becoming an entrepreneur. All I wanted
to do was to earn an honest living for my family, and all I wanted to do was help other
women in my shoes do the same.
But the more I became involved, the more I realized quickly that this fight was not just
about me, that it affected other people as well. It affected Nina Lians, who had braided
hair all her life, and after finishing high school decided she wanted to open and start
her own braiding salon only to be told no by the state of Mississippi, unless you go
to school first and obtain a cosmetology license and pay over $10,000.
Nina didn't have that type of money, and besides, she wasn't going to learn anything, again,
in here field of braiding. I met Nina when she was 35 years old. She had long given up
on her dream of becoming a hair braider.
Guess what? Nina settled for working in a furniture factory sewing furniture. It affected
Ebony Starks who was 16. Her dad had died suddenly, to illness. She was faced with having
to find part time work to help her mother pay some of the bills. It affected mothers
who wanted to work but had children and didn't have childcare.
It also affected college students who wanted to earn money on the side, making extra money
braiding hair just to work their way through college. It affected the teenage mom who had
dropped out of school.
In 2005 our efforts paid off. Mississippi's governor signed legislation enabling hair
braiders to be free of the burdensome mandated regulatory laws. We won.
But let me tell you, it wasn't that easy. Many times I wanted to give up. I thought
to myself, is this all worth it? Taking weekly trips to the state capital, one to three days
out of a week, spending time away from my family, trying to convince legislators of
a subject that many of them were clueless about and probably some of them could even
care less about. But you know what, it brings me to a story.
I remember one day my attorney and I were about to go into a health and sanitation meeting.
We were a bit nervous about this committee meeting this day because, had our bill been
voted against it would have put us in a losing position.
So this is a true story, I'm not making this up. Another reason why we were nervous is
because an argument had been raised by the health and sanitation committee that if hair
braiders were allowed to practice without a license, and AIDS epidemic could break out.
I'm telling you this is a true story.
So just as my attorney and I were standing there, this is very intense, as we were standing
there waiting to go into this meeting, the gentleman appeared out of nowhere. It was
like he came out of the shadows.
He walked up to us and introduced himself, and he said, "I've been following your bill
and I believe I have some information that will help you going forward. He then handed
my attorney and I a stack of papers.
As we read the headlines on the paper, our eyes almost popped out of our heads. The headline
read, "Tattoo artists are not licensed in Mississippi”.
It then went on to give some facts about what was involved in tattooing and some of the
side effects. Things like needles, blood, and infections, all of which don't involved
natural hair braiders.
We knew that we had a powerful tool in our hand, and as we passed that out to each senator
that entered the meeting that day, we knew that we had their attention, and all of them
passed our bill. The only requirements today are that hair braiders in Mississippi must
pay a fee and register with the state board of health and abide by basic health and sanitation
guidelines.
So fast forward to today. In Mississippi today over 3,000 people are registered in Mississippi
as hair braiders and they are now able, where they weren't able to before, provide for themselves and for
their families. I was able to hire Nina Lians. She actually was able to see her dreams come
true. Ebony Starks, who was 16 when I hired her, is now 25.
She was able through the money she earned through hair braiding to help her mother through
difficult times. Guess what, she still works in the salon and she's now providing for her
own family. I've gone on to teach hundreds of individuals how to braid hair.
No longer am I stopped from government regulations from putting industrious individuals to work.
I literally have gone on and done other things. I've opened Armstrong Academy, which is a
braiding school. I've been able to establish Melony Armstrong Coaching and Consulting.
So guess what, I'm just one hair braider in Tupelo, Mississippi who just happened to make
one simple change in the law. That's all that happened. There only needed to be one tweak
in the law, and that one tweak in the law has affected thousands of women in Mississippi,
and as a matter of fact, not only in Mississippi, but in Alabama, because they have since passed
laws.
In Arkansas they have since passed laws. In Texas they have since passed laws. In Utah
they have since passed laws as well.
So what am I saying here? I think we need to take a serious look at the regulatory walls
that are barring entrepreneurs from making an honest living.
I think about the Nina Lians and Ebony Starks, and who knows. There may be 10,000, 100,000,
even 1 million Nina Lians out there.
We owe it to our citizens to pay attention to these laws that do nothing but keep entrepreneurs
out. I wish that we would take a serious look and consider what we're doing.
America was built on the backs of entrepreneurs. I think many people would agree that we need
entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs made America great, and if we could do it in Mississippi,
we can do it across the nation.
Thank you.