Today's History Story: Black Barber Shops

The Black barbershop is a cultural institution. It's a place where you can get much more than a haircut. You get community. You get jokes. You might get politicized. And you will get the straight talk that we often hold back when navigating a larger public that's committed to white supremacist systems. What we don't often talk about when thinking of the barbershop is it's vital role in the Black economy.

To help us understand both the politics and economics of Black barber shops, we’re sitting down with Quincy Mills. Quincy is an associate professor of history at the University of Maine and College Park. He teaches courses in 20th century African-American history, particularly business and political history. He's authored, "Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America,” and is working on a new book called “The Wages of Resistance: Financing the Black Freedom Movement."

BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people! PushBlack exists because we saw we had to take this into our own hands.

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The Black History Year production team includes: Tareq Alani, Brooke Brown, Shiavon Chapman, Abeni Jones, Briona Lamback, Zain Murdock, Tasha Taylor, and Leslie Taylor-Grover. Our producers are Cydney Smith and Sasha Kai Parker, who also edits the show. Black History Year’s executive producer is Julian Walker.

NOTE: Today's history story is a fictional account of what so many Black barbershops experienced historically

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