CHARLOTTE, N.C. — During Black History Month, Charlotte Today wants to honor those who are making a difference in their communities.
Shaun Corbett, the owner of Da Lucky Spot Barbershop, started the business 10 years ago.
"The barbershop was built on core community values and just being involved in the community," Corbett said. "The community are the ones that support us so it was only right for us to support our community. We built a foundation of being involved and being consistent and being there for our community.”
And they have been growing ever since. Now, they're in Walmarts.
“We’ve been working on Walmart for several years," Corbett said. "It finally broke through. Actually, April 4, 2019, we became the first African-American-owned and operated barbershop inside Walmart. [On] Nov. 30 of 2020, we opened our second location in Gastonia. May 2021 will be our third location in Columbia. And we will open two more at the end of 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia.”
They also have a program called Cops and Barbers where Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter intersect.
“Cops and Barbers is something we started around 2015," Corbett said. "Me and Sheriff Gary McFadden and a group of barbers felt that it was needed because the barbershop is the cornerstone of the community. It’s a safe place. We can talk about everything. So what we were finding out was that a lot of officers, we were seeing they weren’t familiar with our culture or our community."
They used that disconnect to bridge the gap instead.
"[The barbershop is] a safe place, no-judgment zone," Corbett said. "We could have those uncomfortable conversations and walk away and still be brothers and have respect for each other. We started having these conversations and we did it for about two to three years. We took all the data that we compiled and decided to be effective, so we created the scholarship program. We give them a trade in the barber school, we get them job placement and financial literacy."
To date, they have about seven gradates and will give away more than a dozen scholarships.
"We continue to grow and continue to move forward," Corbett said.
Black history icons like Marcus Garvey or WEB DuBois have always influenced Corbett.
“Growing up I’ve been exposed to a lot of black history icons," Corbett said. "You name it from ... Garrett Morgan, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, your Malcolm Xs and your Martin Luther Kings."
But when it comes to the most influential Black history icon, he looks the most to his mother.
"My mother worked two jobs all her life," Corbett recalled. "I think that was phenomenal, rain sleet or snow it didn’t matter if she was sick or wasn’t feeling well, she worked not to mention the sacrifices she made raising four kids. To me, that’s Black history."
Corbett was recently featured in Pride Magazine, which he called "very humbling."
"Living in Charlotte for so long and knowing what Pride Magazine has meant to the City of Charlotte and what it has meant to the African-American community, to be bestowed that honor is really humbling and exciting, and I’m definitely grateful," Corbett said.