A Juneteenth TV broadcast turned out to be the big reveal. On-air reporter Akilah Davis started her segment wearing a straight, light-colored wig, one she had been known to wear often on air, but by the end of her segment, she was showing off her natural, shoulder-length locks. She told the viewing audience she was finally getting the “hair freedom” she’d been looking for.

“I feel free. I feel liberated. I feel inspired. I feel powerful,” she told People magazine, with clear overwhelm and joy in her voice. “There is power that comes with being your true self. I feel like I can take on anything.”

Davis, 34, is a race and culture reporter from ABC 11-affiliate television station WTVD in North Carolina. She’s been with the station since December 2021.

Akilah told People that from a young girl, she picked up the belief from society that straight hair was good hair and natural hair was not.

“Growing up, my hair texture was misunderstood. My tight curls were difficult for mom to manage,” Davis told ABC News 13. “Unknowingly, I internalized this idea that straight hair was good hair and Afro hair like mine was not.”

“The message really stayed with a generation of Black women in particular who really had to work to overcome the idea that something about their hair was inherently inadequate,” Dr. Jasmine Cobb, a professor of African American studies at Duke University, told ABC News 13. Cobb is the author of the book “New Growth, The Art and Texture of Black Hair.”

Davis said she chose Juneteenth to share her journey to hair freedom because she wants to be true to herself on the job, ABC News 13 reported.

“There’s an emotional exhaustion in waking up and braiding your hair down and putting a wig on top of it to appear presentable for other people every day,” Davis told People. “And I got tired of it. I started my locs with the intention of this day coming.”

Showing her natural hair at work has “been years in the making for me. There is a mental switch that happens before someone makes a decision like this, introducing you to their parents and sharing their personal story. And the switch has been happening for the last couple of years. Why not embrace who I am? It’s me.”

Akilah Davis (Photos: Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/AkilahDavisWTVD/)