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These Chicago Barbers Have a Message: No More Violence

56 barbers gathered in Englewood to stop gun violence, one haircut at time.
A young boy gets his haircut for free, as barbers come together in Englewood for Barber Shop Ceasefire Movement. Photo: Catherine Chapman

Getting a haircut can amount to monthly cleanliness or a personal style statement, but for the barbers who gathered in the Chicago neighbourhood of Englewood on Sunday, it’s a cultural activity that can hold a community together. Standing up to rising gun violence, 56 barbers from across the nation gave free haircuts to children and seniors, demanding a ceasefire throughout the streets of Chicago and other US cities.

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“We’ve been cutting hair since 9:58 am,” Sunni Powell, owner of Powell’s Barber Shop and organizer of Sunday’s event, Barber Shop Ceasefire Movement, tells The Creators Project at the event. “Barbers never get a chance to socialize together and this is the first time that we get to. It gives us the chance to do something positive together.”

Powell is a leader in Englewood, a southwest Chicago area notoriously known to be dangerous with 93 violent crimes reported from June to July of this year alone. Inside Powell’s Barber Shop however, patrons can find a real Englewood institution, one without violence or gang dealings, where community building events and job fairs are put on regularly amidst the hair cuttings.

“You go into a barbershop to get your haircut and it’s a family-oriented place,” says Valerie Turley, mother of four who was born and raised in Englewood. “You sit, you talk, you may even vent. Barbershops are very important because these are the men and women who can school are youth.”

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Over 500 free haircuts were given to children and seniors, many of who wouldn’t normally be able to afford it. Photo: Catherine Chapman

But earlier in May, a gunman entered Powell’s shop, shooting and killing one customer and injuring another. Though Englewood is regrettably no stranger to tragedy—a 3-year-old boy was wounded in February after getting caught between gang gunfire—the shooting in what is seen as the neighbourhood’s safe haven sprang Powell and the public into action.

“After the shooting I had to take it up a notch and think what am I going to do to bring my shop back up,” Powell tells The Creators Project. “But also, what am I going to do to bring barbering back to where it’s supposed to be?”

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To Powell, that means viewing barbers much like a doctor or a church—pillars within a community that can provide a positive influence on the lives they interact with. For a barber, interaction happens with anyone who gets a haircut, be they an elder, mother, or young man pressured into joining a gang.

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This style was done by a student at Larry’s Barber College. Photo: Catherine Chapman

“A lot of us have being ignoring those sitting in our chair,” says Powell. “Just cutting their hair, getting our money and letting them go. We need to start speaking love to our clients when we know that they’re out there shooting and killing each other. We need to start redirecting them.”

Inspired by Barbershop: The Next Cut—the fourth film in the comedy series fittingly surrounding a barbershop in the South Side of Chicago—Powell raised $9,000 through crowdfunding to fix his shop and put on the event. Much like the movie, where barbers give free cuts and styling to save their neighbourhood from being overrun by gangs, Englewood’s Barber Shop Ceasefire Movement hopes to propel barbers into deterring at risk youth from gang violence, something that schools and city resources have so far failed in doing.

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A barber’s essential toolkit. Photo: Catherine Chapman

“You can’t get a job without a barber,” says Powell. “You can’t get a girlfriend without a barber. It’s a part of our basic hygiene. The more you see your barber, the better you look, the better you are presented to the public. So, if I’m the man that can give you that, you probably listen to me and probably take my advice.

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Chicago barber colleges including Larry’sSilk N Classy and McCoy, also participated in the event, putting forward some of their best students to cut the hair of over 500 people. Many of these students were from the Englewood area, choosing to take up a career in barbering because, “I was sick of getting fired so I took control of my life and future,” as one explains to us.

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Courvosier Randolph, a member of the spoken word group L.Y.R.I.C, performed at Sunday’s event, explaining how he uses poetry to channel his anger. Photo: Catherine Chapman

Barber training programs, many of which work with individuals with financial difficulties, can offer at-risk youth a way out of poverty and crime, and, according to Powell, “are the frontlines of entrepreneur business for the black community,” a population based predominantly in the South Side of Chicago.

Ms B—a hair industry icon and Englewood local—saw her family take over McCoy’s Barber & Styling College in 1965 and has been helping kids’ dreams come true since then.

“Yeah they call us 'Chiraq,' but that’s OK,” she tells us. “We know that we’re the cream of the crop that will rise to the top. The barber shop is the hub. It’s the place that every young man is going to go through. So it’s incumbent of our industry to be positive and take action.”

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Sunni Powell, pictured center in red, wanted to do something positive for his community after a shooting occurred in his barbershop in May 2016. Photo: Catherine Chapman

From 10am – 5pm on Sunday, July 31st, 56 barbers cut the hair of a total of 524 heads in Barber Shop Ceasefire Movement, an event Chicago barbers hope to put on every year and spread the anti-violence message to other cities.

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