Lecture: "The Creativity of Freedom: Black Barbers and the Artistry of the Barber Shop" with Quincy Mills

11:00 a.m.
Free and open to the public 

In conjunction with the exhibition The Treasure of Ulysses Davis, Quincy Mills, assistant professor of history at Vassar College, will give a presentation discussing the social and political culture of African American barber shops in the mid twentieth-century. Black barber shops have historically been places where commerce, culture, and community intersect to inform African Americans' individual and collective freedom. The subject of Intuit's exhibition, Ulysses Davis, cut hair and created sculptures inside his barber shop in Savannah, Georgia as an expression of his economic and artistic freedom. Barbering provided him the skill to maintain control of his economic life and the barber shop provided him the space to exercise his artistic creativity.