Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America

Mills (history, Vassar Coll.) examines the culture and history of black barbers and their barbershops from antebellum America through changes during and after the civil rights era. While taking a broad view and outlining the interrelationship of politics, fashions, and the barbershop business across time, Mills narrows in on a few stories to illustrate his findings. He traces the development of an association of black barbers, details the rise of several prominent businesses, and emphasizes the contradictions faced by many black barbers who achieved success by grooming only white patrons. The most interesting sections of his book are those where he delves deeply into stories of particular barbers such as Alonzo Herndon of Atlanta, a founding member of the Niagara Movement (precursor to the NAACP), and an organizer of insurance companies serving African Americans. He achieved success by "shaving the city's wealthy and politically connected white patrons." Mills covers desegregation's effects on barbershops in the South.