Erykah Badu's Natural Hair Parade in Dallas

Erykah Badu née Erica Abi Wright, is leading a parade of natural hair wearing sistahs in a Dallas parade Labor Day weekend.

The Natural Hair Parade and Festival hosted by Badu invites more than 400 women to march with her and strut their natural tresses. Badu and the parade’s founder, Isis Brantley, are asking women to advertise the natural hair parade with tweets to help them reach the goal and challenge of 400 natural hair wearing ladies for the September 3 parade.

Both Badu and Brantley are Dallas natives. The hair parade is right on time for women natural hair wearers in the African American community. Over the summer, two African American women have complained about the TSA searching their natural hair styles.

Laura Adiele, 30, flew from Washington state to Texas when TSA agents told her they’d need to examine her hair because it “poofed” from her body. Timery Shante Nance, also 30, had her hair examined by TSA. Nance also wears a natural hair style. Nance also complained and the NYTIMES covered her story.

Typically, TSA asks women to remove scarves and shawls from their body before entering through the scanner. Nance and Adiele were both offended with TSA because they’d both gone through scanners without causing alarm. And subsequently were subjected to a hair pat down.

Almost everyone who has weighed in on the probability of a black woman masking explosives in her hair and dismissed the notion as ridiculous. Adiele filed a complaint with TSA and TSA says that although it takes racism complaints seriously, the hair pat down was a security measure and TSA agents were doing their jobs. Most believe that the TSA agents were curious about the women’s hair texture.

To be fair, TSA reserves the right to body pat travelers even if the scanner clearly indicates they’ve got nothing on them. Most black women are subjected to both pat downs after xray screens, particularly at high volume airports both stateside and overseas.

Isis and Erykah, two natural hair wearers, are asking women to tweet: "Natural Hair Parade & Festival by @Naturallyisis Sept. 3, 2011 Dallas, TX #Naturalhair #Laboroflove FREE RSVP."

The Natural Hair Parade & Festival is meant to raise awareness about natural hair and the women who choose to wear natural hairstyles.The event is free and open to the public. Line up is at 8:30 a.m. at the Wynnewood Shopping Center,655 W. Illinois Ave. The parade starts at 10:30 a.m. and ends at Naturally Isis Beckley location, 2642 S. Beckley. The festival is from 12:00 p.m. – 5 p.m. at Beckley Saner Park.

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