It’s been nearly five years, but Tashara Parker still remembers the October morning well: She woke up at 1:45 a.m., went to the Downtown Dallas WFAA TV studios where she worked as a morning anchor, sat in on the daily editorial meeting, did her makeup, put on her microphone, and did her news show. Little did she know that it wasn’t her reporting that had impacted North Texas viewers that morning, but rather her hair, which she’d styled in a series of buns.
After she finished the newscast, Parker started receiving angry messages and emails; viewers called the station.
“Boy, you would have thought I had then went up in somebody’s house and cussed them out,” she told The Barbed Wire, “because me showing up on TV with this natural hairstyle disrupted a lot of people’s morning TV.”
Her short tenure in the country’s fifth largest TV market gave her pause about how to handle the situation: “At first, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m still new here, should I not say anything? I don’t want to really raise a red flag, I ain’t trying to be the problem child just yet.”
But Parker said that staying silent wasn’t who she is. Later that week, she produced a piece responding to the negative comments. The headline read: ‘Who determines what’s professional?’: Black hair shouldn’t be a topic for debate. And with that, the Houston native sparked a national conversation on Black hair in the workplace.
“It ended up just spreading like wildfire, and lots of people saying, ‘Oh man, we appreciate you for doing this. Thank you for standing up for black women and black hair and fighting against hair discrimination.’”
She started several series at her TV station to help amplify Black voices. Rooted explored Black hair history and perception, and Enough brought to light conversations of men’s mental health in the Black community.
All of which led her to advocacy work for Black hair protections, and she delivered testimony for the Crown Act, which stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” to prevent discrimination based on their hairstyle or hair texture “commonly or historically associated with race.”
“Good evening everyone, Howdy!” Parker said to lawmakers after waiting 11 hours to deliver her testimony. With her hair in a braid down her back, Parker wore a white pantsuit with printed with vibrant, fuchsia-colored hibiscus flowers, which was introduced to the Americas by enslaved people 500 years ago. In her testimony, viewed more than 157,000 on Instagram, Parker asked lawmakers to envision wearing an identity not your own into work every day, and asked questions she did in her viral video: Why does my crown, my hair, offend you?
“Are we relying on old outdated policies that likely weren’t developed by a lot of people who look like me?” Parker asked.
The bill passed into law in Texas in 2023, as it has in several other states.
“That led to me to say, ‘Okay, well look, if I’m getting all this support, I know God didn’t give me my platform to keep it to myself.’ And I said, ‘You know what? I need to amplify some other stories,’” Parker told The Barbed Wire.
Just a few months before Parker showed up to work with her natural hair in 2020, George Floyd’s murder by a police officer had sparked racial justice protests and it seemed Americans were coming to a “racial reckoning,” eager to address the injustices seen in every facet of American society. But in the years since, the country has seen a backlash, and an assault on diversity, equity and inclusion led by President Donald Trump. Simultaneously, Parker started to feel her mission was outgrowing the multiple confines of TV news.
“I got to a point where things are just getting even more and more frustrating. I didn’t know why I was so tense and anxious all the time,” Parker said. “It was just being complacent, like in one position for so long, and knowing that I wanted to do more, and once those things didn’t come about, you know, it was time to go.”
She wanted to be an example to the people who looked up to her. She wanted to show that a loud presence can open doors, so on July 19, 2024, she left the comfort of a steady paycheck and health insurance, and bet on herself and Loud Women Lead, the company she built part-time after years of 1 a.m. alarm clocks.
“It has not been easy. To leave something you’d known for 10 years is a loud decision in itself,” Parker said. “Really digging into the organization and growing it has given me that outlet to really, really pursue what it means to amplify the voices of others.”
Parker has become well-known across social media — “Hey Cousins!” her familiar opening line — where she supports and nurtures her community of fellow loud women.
Last year, Parker launched Loud Beauty, creating a line of lipsticks and other products as part of her pivot “against a world that wasn’t always ready for women who looked like her,” she told The Barbed Wire. The Loud Beauty line features shades with names like Universal Truth and Loud & Clear to “reflect the power of owning your presence.” Her lip products come in gold and crystal-inspired tubes that “symbolize the breaking of glass ceilings and the confidence that comes from stepping into your power.”
In addition to her beauty products, Parker’s company teaches Black and Brown women and other marginalized people to own their stories and learn how to speak in public. They’re gearing up now and accepting applications of her yearly Ted X Talk – inspired event, Loud & Clear: A LIVE Storytelling Experience. She believes it’s crucial women can own their own narratives as we navigate 2025 and what a second Trump administration means.
“We’re in a day and age where people are losing their jobs based on their skin color,” Parker said. “We’re watching rights be stripped away, people lose their jobs, there isn’t a better time than now for us to make sure that we are using our voices and that we are unafraid to use our voices in situations where, you know we may be afraid to do so.”
Since Trump took office in January, the outward promise of upholding equity in spaces has fizzled. On day one of his presidency, the Trump administration issued several executive orders that would end protections for people based on diversity, equity and inclusion, and gender. Although many of the executive orders are caught up in federal courts, the ripple effect on ending these protections has seeped into the private sector.
“Loud Women Lead, at its core, is a rallying cry to amplify the voices of women of color, when it comes to us using not only our voices, but our presence,” Parker explained. “Nothing brings me more joy than to see other women own their story and to own it in front of strangers, people they have never met in their entire lives, and they’re standing on stage and speaking in front of them, and so I think that’s a giant F-you for anyone who ever doubted them.”