The Coleman Brothers And Their Iconic Black Barbershop Honored With Sign On 68th Street (2024)

SOUTH SHORE — When Gwendolyn Coleman Riley wanted her first perm, her afro shaped or her eyebrows done, she turned to her father, Richard Coleman.

Then, perhaps, she’d ask for a couple twenties out of his barbershop’s register.

“Couldn’t nobody else cut my hair,” she said.

Coleman Riley was one of many loved ones, customers and supporters of Richard Coleman and his brother, James, who gathered Friday to share in smiles and sunshine outside the Coleman Brothers Barbershop, 6802 S. Stony Island Ave.

The “family reunion” celebrated the unveiling of an honorary brown street sign in the brothers’ names. From now on, the 1500 block of 68th Street will be known as Coleman Brothers Way.

“My dad raised six kids from that barbershop,” said Wheeler Coleman, James’ son and Richard’s nephew. He has owned the shop since 2018. “That’s the true essence of establishing a Black operation in what is a Black neighborhood.”

The first Coleman Brothers shop was at 63rd Street and Dorchester Avenue, while the Stony Island outpost opened in 1963 and has remained there. Though the shop technically sits a block into South Shore, it touts its service to the “greater Woodlawn” community.

The Coleman brothers’ work was known and trusted by people in the neighborhood, as well as those with clout far beyond it — a legacy that continues today.

Former WBEZ host Richard Steele was a regular customer for decades, while the popular NPR program “This American Life” profiled Bulls fandom at the Coleman brothers’ shop during the team’s 1996 NBA title run.

Former Ald. Leslie Hairston recommended then-Sen. Barack Obama visit Coleman Brothers to develop “grassroots” connections in the neighborhood, she said Friday.

Ald. Desmon Yancy (5th) joked that he hasn’t needed a barber in a while, but shop manager Art Muhammad now cuts hair for the alderperson’s son.

“The experience I’ve had in there is being around mostly good men; not perfect, but men who have stories and lessons to share,” Yancy said.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was one of Richard Coleman’s regular customers, typically coming in as the first guest at 5 a.m., Coleman Riley said. The shop is just a few blocks up Stony Island from the group’s headquarters, Mosque Maryam.

“James and Richard Coleman were the masters of barbershop rhetoric and culture,” Farrakhan wrote in a letter read during Friday’s ceremony. “As a duo, they produced a barbershop that was a place of joy, happiness and argument that did not devolve into fighting, but evolved into people who had love and respect for each other.”

But household names, politicians and professionals aren’t the only ones who need haircuts.

Coleman Brothers “survived the gangs of the late ’60s and early ’70s” — a period when the Blackstone Rangers established street dominance and organized for wider acceptance — by serving and gaining the respect of all in the community, Wheeler Coleman said.

His father and uncle also avoided vandalism and destruction amid the uprisings which followed Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Wheeler Coleman said.

The brothers, who moved from Elba, Alabama, during the Great Migration, “were not from Chicago, but were well-respected among all walks of life: those that were ‘the criminal element’ of society, as well as those that are held in high esteem,” Wheeler Coleman said.

Richard Coleman died in 2016 at 81 years old, and James Coleman died in 2018 at 88. All of their siblings also died before the street sign was unveiled — except their sister, now 92, who attended Friday’s ceremony.

The Coleman brothers are “not here to see this, but we honor them, and we’re standing on legacy,” Coleman Riley said. “We must continue to uplift one another and keep Black businesses open.”

Black barbershops are well-known as gathering places for men to develop their style, learn from each other, debate current events and crack jokes. The shop epitomized that concept, family members said.

“I would always think, ‘What I’m gonna hear funny today?'” Reggie Coleman, Richard’s youngest child, said Friday. “When you walked into that barbershop, brother, you got an education. It might not have been from Harvard or Yale, but you got an education.”

A typical Black barbershop “is not just, ‘come in and get your haircut,'” Wheeler Coleman told Block Club. “It’s the socialization that occurs, the coaching and advisory services they provide, and helping individuals with life decisions in some cases.

“My dad did a lot of hair and raised a lot of kids, not only giving them money, but advice — especially those that didn’t have” support elsewhere, he said.

The shop’s social function was obvious during Block Club’s visit Thursday. Barbers and their customers chatted about the latest “Bad Boys” release and their Father’s Day plans.

Johnny Morris-El and Ronald Taylor, two regulars and former strangers, were in the shop for a birthday cut. They learned they shared a birthday, after which they dapped each other up and bonded over being Geminis.

But Coleman Brothers is a welcoming space for all, not just men, supporters said. James Coleman insisted customers and barbers show “respect for the ladies” in the shop, the Sun-Times reported in 2018.

Line-ups, fades, twists, locs, dye jobs, shaves — “you name it, we’re doing it,” regardless of one’s identity, Wheeler Coleman said. Just ask first-time customer Nia, who couldn’t help but smile Thursday as her barber, Ara, shaved a heart in the back of her fresh cut.

Richard Coleman “honored all people, and women in particular,” Coleman Riley said. “He had a soft spot in his heart for women because he only had one sister, so everybody became a sister.”

Long before Richard and James Coleman were born — let alone beloved barbers — their grandfather, Dick Coleman, cut hair in Alabama. Dick was killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan when Richard and James’ father was only 4 years old, Wheeler Coleman said.

It’s poignant to see how the Coleman brothers turned their move to Chicago, in part spurred by that racist violence and a lack of opportunity in the deep South, into a legacy that “made a difference in so many people’s lives,” Wheeler Coleman said.

Now, with the brown sign, their legacy is an official part of Chicago’s history.

“It reminds us you don’t have to be a politician, a doctor or a lawyer to have an impact on your community,” Wheeler Coleman said. “It just reminds all of us that we need to figure out [how] to continue to impact others in our own little ways.”

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