Sunday, January 11, 2009
Barber did more than give haircuts
Read Shanna's blog
Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
Shanna Flowers
Recent columns
In the 1970s and '80s, few barbers held court the way Donald Harry Alexander did.
The Roanoke native, who went by his middle name, was a barber among barbers.
He was famous for creating the most stylish and cutting-edge haircuts worn by many of Roanoke's young black men. Alexander's business, Harry's Style Shop, was equal parts entertainment and armchair philosophy.
"Everybody wanted a Harry Alexander haircut," said 45-year-old Claude "Sport" Page, who began going to Alexander as a youngster in the 1970s. "A lot of life lessons were learned there."
The man who inspired a generation of local barbers and endeared countless others to him with his generosity and his own brand of barbershop wisdom passed away Jan. 3 of heart failure. He was 58.
On Saturday, hundreds of family, friends and former customers filled the sanctuary of Garden of Prayer No. 7 in Northwest Roanoke to pay their respects to the divorced father of six.
The night before, more than 300 crowded into the chapel at Hamlar-Curtis Funeral Home as dozens more spilled into the hallway.
"You can tell how a person lived by how many people attend his funeral," the minister told the overflowing crowd.
The celebration of Alexander's life also was an unintentional homage to the barbershop as an institution in the black community. That was evident in the warm memories about Harry's Style Shop that I heard Friday night at Alexander's wake.
We have heard a lot about the vital role of the black church in the community. But except for a couple of movies depicting a fictional urban barbershop a few years back, less has been said about the social and cultural impact of the black barbershop.
Two years ago, Earl Reynolds, director of housing and community development for Total Action Against Poverty, recalled for me his experiences as a young boy, sitting in the shop of his father, who also was a barber, and soaking in the wisdom of older men's conversations.
Barbershop banter is the great equalizer, regardless of one's status. Nothing is off limits. Men feel uninhibited to discuss the weighty issues of the world and argue good-naturedly over sports, music and Beyonce.
They arrive with the purpose of looking better and leave inevitably feeling better because of the fellowship and social outlet barbershops provide.
"It was black men coming in talking about jobs, about life, about anything," said Ibrahim Hamidullah, Alexander's close friend who cut with him for 30 years.
"You were relieving some pressure off your mind," the 56-year-old said. "We'd be cutting, but we'd be listening, too. You had music. You had television. It was entertainment, and they walked out with a nice haircut."
Alexander learned barbering at Lucy Addison High School, where he graduated in 1970, said childhood friend Michael Brewer, 57.
He got his license right after high school and got a job cutting at a shop near Lincoln Terrace. He later opened his own barbershop, which changed locations a couple of times.
After a few years, Alexander got a job as a wireman at General Electric. But he didn't stop cutting. During those years, his reputation began to grow. Alexander worked a full shift at GE, would leave there and go straight to the shop.
Sometimes, a dozen people would be waiting for him, Hamidullah said. Alexander would cut hair into the wee hours of the morning. He developed a list, so that customers could sign their name, leave and preserve their "spot."
I spoke with several people who told me it was nothing to drive past Alexander's shop at 2 or 3 a.m. and see the light on. On the nights before big games, the barber would cut William Fleming and Patrick Henry high school athletes' hair for free.
The barber, who often preached to his young customers the value of education, wanted to make sure the young men looked and felt good on the field.
"He touched a lot of young people's lives," said Tami Amos, who went to Alexander's shop as a young girl with her brother. "He truly was an icon in this community."
In the '80s, when cutting symbols into people's hair became popular, Alexander perfected the technique.
I heard stories about Alexander's legendary generosity -- of lending his van to a customer so she could drive her son to college, of buying shoes for athletes who couldn't afford them, of buying trophies for athletes and of sharing his trademark skills.
Presumably, Alexander saw imitation as the highest form of flattery, because barber Dyon Williams, 33, recalled the master barber jokingly saying one time, "All these bootleggers here are trying to copy my style."
But Alexander's long nights of cutting with one hand and eating a sandwich with the other caught up with him. He developed diabetes and eventually had to have all the toes on his right foot removed.
In 2000, Brewer said, Alexander had a heart attack and had to have bypass surgery. He eventually retired from GE. He had two more heart attacks and suffered from congestive heart failure. He continued to cut a few heads but eventually gave it up a few years ago.
But his proteges fondly remember the master barber whose tips they copied. Williams, whose shop is on Peters Creek Road, uses a sign-in list as Alexander did.
"The barbershop is more than a cut," Williams said. "He made you feel at home.
"In the barber game, Harry was our Michael Jordan."
