My loc journey began in 1999. I was working at an HBCU in Delaware. It should have been my dream job but it was absolutely toxic. I knew it within a week of arriving. An ex girlfriend comb curled my hair with aloe. I knew the entire weekend that there would be trouble, but I did it anyway. Although there was no policy against locs, there was a certain culture that values appearances and the idea of respectability above everything else. I did my job well. They had no cause to fire me, and there was nobody that could have stepped up to replace me. They never sent me to human resource, and my supervisors never actually sat me down for the talk. I think that might have opened them up to liability. Instead I heard, suddenly, that the chief of security wanted to talk to me. We got along. He was as close to a friend as I had in Delaware. I was the staff writer and photographer. He told me that my hair would draw attention away from the university president when I photographed his events. In other words, people would be more focused on the top of my head than they would be in the man behind the podium. I was there for about nine more months after that. Never once did the press turn away from the president to ask me about my hair. Sitting in my senior class of High School holding a cassette tape of 3rd Base, feeling like they were the most creative men in the world inspired me to grow locs. In college it was Poor Righteous Teachers and Brand Nubians. I wanted locs because my heroes had locs. The Jamaican maroons that stormed the plantation owners with their dreaded locs. They were all fearless. I wasn’t, but I wanted to be. My locs were an act of rebellion on a campus that wanted us all to look and act the same. I have turned down more than one job because of them. I have to believe that it’s all part of a greater path." Chad #freedomtoloc #freedomlocs #menwithlocs #loclivin