TV Reporter Akilah Davis Wears Locs on Air After Hiding Natural Hair Under a Wig

The ABC News journalist tells PEOPLE she hopes to inspire other Black women by sharing her personal hair journey

North Carolina news reporter Akilah Davis celebrated Juneteenth by embracing her natural hair for the first time ever on air and sharing the story of her journey to “hair freedom” with her viewers.

Davis, 34, a race and culture reporter for ABC 11-affiliate station WTVD, had previously worn a wig or weave for about 10 years for her television appearances, covering her natural hair, including the locs she started working on in December 2021, she tells PEOPLE exclusively.

In a personal video package that aired on Monday and included interviews with her parents, Terry and Debra Davis, and her own statements, Davis spoke of her near-lifelong struggle to embrace her natural hair.

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

Davis cited the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd's 2020 murder as the spark for a "quiet movement among Black women" that involved starting locs in their hair as a form of freedom and self-expression. But nothing about revealing her natural hair on television was a decision that Davis took lightly or came to quickly.

"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 tells PEOPLE. "And I got tired of it. I started my locs with the intention of this day coming."

The weight of Juneteenth felt like the right day for Davis to embrace her natural self and her "hair liberation," she says. "This 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."

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“Moving forward, this is how you’ll see me on TV, and I’m hoping to inspire women and little girls struggling to embrace their roots,” Davis said on air. “I see you, sis, and I’m with you.”

She tells PEOPLE that the response to her segment — which she intended to just be for her local audience — has been unbelievably overwhelming. And while her heart is full knowing how many Black women she's helping to feel empowered by their own natural hair, it's the little Black girls that she's truly trying to reach.

"They watch me on TV and I was once them," she tells PEOPLE. "So if I could appeal to a little Brown girl that has braids or locs and let her know that her hair is beautiful too, it is professional too, and society is making space for her, then my job is done."

Though she started her segment wearing the light-colored wig in a pin-straight hairstyle she'd become known for on air, by the end of her segment, Davis stood proudly on screen in her natural, shoulder-length locs. She told her 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 tells PEOPLE, 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."