Greater Harrisburg's Community Magazine

Shear Wisdom: “Chops” Green combines cuts with counsel

Hauson “Chops” Green. Photo by Dani Fresh.

The day after Christmas last year, Harrisburg lost another young Black man to gun violence on the streets.

The murder of 20-year-old Daiquon Phillips left his family, community and friends, including longtime Uptown barber and Phillips’ mentor Hauson “Chops” Green, reeling.

Not so long ago, Green took Phillips under his tutelage with the shears, going to Phillips’ home to teach him the trade that would lead to a job at another Harrisburg barbershop. Phillips had learned the subtle part of the trade from years sitting in Green’s chair—the part that involves learning to know your customers and dishing life lessons to them. That’s what Green is famous for Uptown.

He speaks from his own mistakes and life experiences, as well as from heartache and what he’s observed. Green isn’t afraid to own poor choices he made that led him to selling drugs on the streets and putting in his time behind bars.

“While incarcerated, I had an epiphany—I just love the kids,” he said. “They don’t have examples in the city. A lot of their examples are incarcerated. That’s why I stay.”

 

A Podium

Green works out of Heads Up barbershop on N. 6th Street—a family-owned business for 46 years currently owned by his uncle James Cheatham.

It’s close to both the Camp Curtin YMCA and the Nativity School of Harrisburg. That location gives him a podium to reach the youth. He opens his shop at five in the morning, staying open till at least six each night, so he can be there for school kids to come in.

When he doesn’t have someone in the chair, he’s out on the street corner, talking to whoever comes by, keeping his eyes on the neighborhood. The kids know he’s there, and they know he’s watching.

“They get to see an example of someone who is not just standing on the corner smoking weed,” he said.

Jamien Harvey, executive director of the Harrisburg Area YMCA’s Camp Curtin and East Shore locations, also spends time out on the street in that Uptown neighborhood, keeping his eyes on the kids.

“Barbershops are important places,” he said. “Those guys are definitely counselors. I get my hair cut [at Heads Up] weekly. We discuss what’s going on politically and how we can change things for the Uptown area.”

Phillips was a middle school graduate of the nearby Nativity School, which is how Green came to know the aspiring barber.

“My first impression of him? He made me smile,” Green said. “One day, he came in and said, ‘I want to cut hair like you.’ I said, ‘OK, come on.’”

Even after Phillips got a job in another shop, he always came back to Green for his haircuts. His death “really stole something from me,” said Green, who lost his own 18-year-old son in an unsolved shooting in 2014.

“From that day, I took the tragedy from my son’s death,” Green said. “It was the fuel for the fire to give back to the kids. From that day, it’s been nonstop.”

 

Coming Back

Parenting is hard, especially when the streets and wrong crowds beckon, said Michelle Hall, the mother of a 19-year-old who has been getting regular cuts and pep talks from Green for years.

“It’s rough because they’re going to make their own decisions regardless of how hard we try to encourage them to do right,” Hall said. “I’m grateful for people like Chops. Hopefully, he can keep encouraging the kids to do right.”

Her son, Amir Brower-Pitts, now a sophomore at Shippensburg University, said that he and his friends always stopped in the shop on the way home from school just to say “what’s up” and to get advice.

“Every time we walked into the barbershop, it was, ‘Hey, stay out of trouble,’” he said.

Although Green employed Brower-Pitts to sweep hair on the weekends and tutored Phillips, he wants to give even more young people opportunities, which is why he plans to open the Original Hot Dog Factory, an Atlanta franchise, next to Sneaker Villa on Market Street in downtown Harrisburg.

“I never had a business like this before,” he said. “I’m learning as I go. I get to learn with them as we work together. I feel like God placed me here for a reason.”

Green wants to keep kids coming back for his advice. He asks them about school. He encourages them to think about college and trades. He offers them money for good report cards, saying that, one year, he gave out more than $1,300.

Another former Nativity student who used to sit in Chops’ chair, Tony James, is a junior at Neumann College outside of Philadelphia, where he won an academic scholarship and plays for the basketball team.

“He tells me every time to stay safe and keep doing what I’m doing in school and stuff and just basically lets me know I have his support, and he wants the best for me no matter what,” he said.

Green said that he’s thought about his legacy in terms of, “what can I leave behind to where it can help other people’s kids?”

Talking to his customers, it seems he has achieved that.

Heads Up is located at 2286 N. 6th St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit www.headsupmensandladiesbarbersalon.com or call 717-236-2533.

 

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