This is the award-winning short story originally published in "Atlanta Magazine" after winning first prize for fiction at the nationally renowned Agnes Scott College Writing Festival.
Amid the Barbershop Rituals of the 1950s, Two Boys Learn about Racial Prejudice & Class Distinctions within the Black Race.
"The hard work of bringing up good Negroes is upon them, and my parents meet that task with sacrifice, industry, a saintly sense of purpose."
"I love coming to the barbershop with my dad. I don’t know it yet, but this is where we participate in the ancient ritual of the knife, which our forebears knew in Africa. This is what’s left of the centuries-old circumcision ceremony, with Mr. Jerome, our barber, taking the place of the witch doctor, the shaman, the guide. The other men—elders—watching as we become one of them."
Amid the Barbershop Rituals of the 1950s, Two Boys Learn about Racial Prejudice & Class Distinctions within the Black Race.
"The hard work of bringing up good Negroes is upon them, and my parents meet that task with sacrifice, industry, a saintly sense of purpose."
"I love coming to the barbershop with my dad. I don’t know it yet, but this is where we participate in the ancient ritual of the knife, which our forebears knew in Africa. This is what’s left of the centuries-old circumcision ceremony, with Mr. Jerome, our barber, taking the place of the witch doctor, the shaman, the guide. The other men—elders—watching as we become one of them."
