Barbering in Slavery and Freedom. Barbering for Freedom in Antebellum America ; The Politics of "Color-Line" Barber Shops after the Civil War ; Race, Regulation, and the Modern Barber Shop -- Black Barbers, Patrons, and Public Spaces. Rise of the New Negro Barber ; Bigger than a Haircut : Desegregation and the Barber Shop ; The Culture and Economy of Modern Black Barber Shops
Summary
Black-owned barber shops play a central role in African American public life. The intimacy of commercial grooming encourages both confidentiality and camaraderie, which make the barber shop an important gathering place for African American men to talk freely. But for many years preceding and even after the Civil War, Black barbers endured a measure of social stigma for perpetuating inequality: though the profession offered economic mobility to Black entrepreneurs, Black barbers were obliged by custom to serve an exclusively white clientele. The author traces the lineage from these nineteenth-century barbers to the bustling enterprises of today, demonstrating that the livelihood offered by the service economy was crucial to the development of a Black commercial sphere and the barber shop as a democratic social space
