Jermaine Horton makes a portrait of Jett Hawkins, 6, at Studio 28 in Aurora on Jan. 7, 2023. Horton has a nonprofit photo project called"The Art of Confidence.", which went into effect Jan. 1, 2022, prevents school boards, local school councils, charter schools, public schools and nonpublic elementary and secondary schools from creating hairstyle-based dress code requirements and banning hairstyles historically associated with any race or ethnicity.
, and state Sen. Mike Simmons, a North Side Democrat, sponsored Senate Bill 817, which was signed into law Aug. 13, 2021.Jett Hawkins, shown in 2021, asked his mother, Ida Nelson, to braid his hair. Nelson got a call the next day from Providence St. Mel informing her the braids were against the school dress code.
Nelson said Jett loves doing interviews, watches videos of the interviews and smiles as he’s watching them. An ABC-7 news segment about his journey was nominated for a 2021-22 Chicago/Midwest Emmy. “I knew his confidence would not be shattered, but I wanted to do the work to make sure that his confidence was never shattered,” Nelson said about Jett’s photo session a year ago.
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