Floyd Jackson talks about politics, diet, health and vaccines as he cuts Danny Swain’s hair. Jackson is one of a corps of Black barbers considered among the most trusted sources for factual information about COVID-19 vaccines in the Black community. (PHOTO BY DAVID ZALAZNIK)
With COVID deaths and diagnoses hitting African American and minority populations hard, a new and trusted voice urging vaccinations is emerging: the Black barber.
Nationwide, African American barbers are recognized as trusted counselors, friends and advocates for their community. Some have cut hair for generations of family members.
In his recent Zoom talk to the Peoria NAACP, Dr. Damon Arnold, past executive director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said one of the most trusted voices in the African American community when it comes to the COVID vaccine is the black barber.
Floyd Jackson smiled at that and confirmed, it’s true.
Jackson is approaching 70 and is part of a new wave of public health advocates.
When someone tells him they have not been vaccinated because they are in God’s hands, Jackson responds, “God gave you a brain. God helped with the discovery of medicine and the vaccine.”
“Skippy’s and Floyd’s Barber Shop” was a stalwart in the Black community for decades. Jackson retired from Pabst and started working in the shop that his brother started. After his brother died in 2008, Jackson kept on cutting in the shop at 1207 SW Adams St.
“I like talking with people,” he said. “This place has been a Ph.D. for me.”
Jackson said one woman who insisted she would not get vaccinated later ended up hospitalized with COVID.
He counters the array of myths from the vaccination causes sterilization to the shot implants a tracking chip into people.
“During polio (epidemic), everyone got the vaccine on a sugar cube. There was no question then. Now, we have all this misinformation because of Trump,” Jackson said.
He received two shots as soon as he could and plans to get a booster as soon as that’s available.
Floyd Jackson expresses frustration at the politicalization of COVID vaccinations and mask wearing. He advocates for both measures as sound public health policies, and he sometimes pushes back against resistance from his customers. But Jackson said, “No one ever walks out of here angry.” (PHOTO BY DAVID ZALAZNIK)
“I do not want to be the cause of someone else’s death. People need to get the vaccine to protect themselves and others,” Jackson said. “If you are not interested in your own health, think of others.”
Jackson’s wife retired from a long career as an educator in Peoria Public Schools they have two daughters, one an educator and one a USDA loan officer. They are all vaccine advocates.
“If it’s the shot or death, take the shot. Even if you don’t die, there are long term health problems with COVID,” he said, while cutting the hair of customer Danny Swain, a retired police officer.
But Jackson added, “No one ever walks out of here angry.”
In some communities across the country, an initiative has formed called Live Chair Health recruiting black barbers to share scientific health care information.
“The [Black] population is overrepresented in almost every chronic disease category, ranging from hypertension, diabetes and lung cancer,” Live Chair Health Founder and CEO Andrew Suggs told ABC News. COVID 19 is also overrepresented in the Black population.
The American Civil Liberties Union is a staunch advocate for civil liberties, but David Cole, national legal director of ACLU, and Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU program on freedom of religion and belief, wrote recently in The New York Times there is no infringement of civil rights by enforcing vaccination and mask mandates.
“In fact, far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable among us, including people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated and communities of color hit hard by the disease,” Cole and Mach wrote.
They cite states that have banned vaccine or mask mandates in the name of freedom –– including Florida, Iowa, South Carolina and Texas –– and contend these bans directly endanger the public health and make more deaths from the disease inevitable.
“We care deeply about civil liberties and civil rights for all – which is precisely why we support vaccine mandates.”
What about people who object to vaccines and mask mandates on the grounds of religious freedom?
“Like personal autonomy, religious freedom is an essential right, but not an unfettered license to inflict harm on others,” the Times article states.
“As the Supreme Court explained more than 75 years ago in Prince v. Massachusetts: ‘The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death.’”