I. Hall
February 20, 1919
G Street Barbershop, Washington, D.C.
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| Barbershop Interior |
I am very glad that I can now end this assignment, as I have confirmed the events stated in Zora Neale Hurston's autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. I have spent the past few days giving manicures to rude, rich white folks. I am tired, my feet are killing me, and at 6:45 in the evening, my shift at the G Street Barber Shop has just ended.
Hurston and I were getting ready to leave for the day when we heard loud voices from the front of the shop that sounded like an argument. We rushed out to the front to see a tall black man sitting in Banks's chair. That was a clear violation of policy; although the shop is black-owned, they do not serve black clients.
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| Zora Neale Hurston |
Banks, the manager, told the gentleman that there is a shop that cuts colored folks hair on U Street. The man said he knew all about that shop and then started discussing the Constitution of the United States. He said if he didn’t get waited on he was going to sue the owner. The man was causing such a commotion that even the white customers got involved. Between the customers and the barbers, they threw the man out into the street. The events played out pretty much as Hurston described them in her autobiography.
Hurston is clearly conflicted about the situation and even told a few of the other manicurists that she plans to write about the events one day. She said that although he was one of us and deserved to be treated in an equal fashion, allowing him to get his hair cut in the shop would have had major consequences. Kicking him out meant that he had to look for another place to get a haircut, but failing to do so would have meant that everyone in the shop would have been looking for another place to work.
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