Growing up in Detroit, Flinte Smith and his friends spent a lot of time in their local barbershop, where they looked up to the men who ran the place and made an honest living.
“I would go to the barber shop and it would provide a safe space for [me and my friends] to play games and to see great male role models,” said Smith, now a Minneapolis barber. “They were legally feeding their families and I fell in love with it at a very young age.”
Last year, while working at his previous barbershop, a representative from Kente Circle Training Institute came to the shop and said the organization wanted to find ways to connect to the Black community after George Floyd’s murder. That, along with the Covid-19 pandemic, has left a lingering effect.
“[The two events] had a negative mental effect on a lot of people in the ‘hood and we didn’t have anywhere to go talk about it,” said Smith, who is also a member of the Confess Project of America, a mental health organization for barbers. “And a lot of times when we’re cutting hair, we become these therapists for the men and young boys in our areas. I just wanted to know, where can I refer them to get some help or to talk to someone? So that’s what got me into [KCTI].”
KCTI provides training for people in the mental health industry. The organization partnered with UCare — a nonprofit health plan that partners with health care providers — as it hosted local black beauty care professionals at its inaugural Soul Care Collective Summit on Monday in Minneapolis.
Larry Tucker, a licensed family therapist and the executive director of KCTI, said people in the beauty care industry don’t often get a chance to talk to each other.
“This is an opportunity to have people in the beauty care industry come together and talk about their experiences in their shops, in their communities, and to share knowledge, trends, information and experiences,” he said.
The event drew about 20 barbers and stylists to a conference room near the University of Minnesota Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center just outside of downtown Minneapolis. Two KCTI representatives led a slide show presentation aimed at getting people in the audience to share their life experiences.
Tucker said the goal was to equip workers in beauty shops — which have a profound impact as gathering places for their communities — with valuable information they can use for both themselves and their clients.
Among those in attendance was Yolanda Gaillard, a cosmetologist and co-owner of The Chiseler Barber and Beauty Shop. “[Mental health] didn’t have a name when I was growing up,” she said. “Now it has a name, and I’m glad Larry is addressing it.”
She added: “They say [hair stylists] are counselors. But I just feel like if I had more tools, then I think I can help them.”
Though barbers and stylists aren’t in the mental health industry, Tucker’s life experiences led him to believe in the connection between beauty shops and mental health — especially during his mom’s battle with cancer.
“It was very clear to me along her journey, her stylist was very instrumental and a key person who helped to sustain her as her health was deteriorating,” Tucker said of his mother, who died three years ago. “She would visit her salon after [seeing the doctors]. She would come back refreshed, rejuvenated. She was, you know, prepared to go a little bit longer.”
He also recalled learning many valuable lessons as a young black man growing up in the inner city that he still uses today.
“My barber was an instrumental person in my life,” Tucker said. “It was where as a young black boy, I learned a lot about what it meant to be a black man. It was where they talked about politics, relationships, all kinds of things.”
