For more than half a century, Mr. George has been a mainstay on this tired corner of Castleberry Hill, snipping hair while presiding over frank talks on everything from shared struggles to sports and politics.
He has watched little boys he once lifted into booster seats grow into men then bring their own sons to sit in his barber’s chair.
And from the window on McDaniel Street that bears the A &M Barber Shop's name, he has seen a community transformed from the projects and shotgun houses to upscale apartment buildings.
Lance Robertson says he’s a joy and a blessing to the community.
Yet in all the years George Axam has stood before that long bank of mirrors inside his shop it would seem his reflection was the one that mattered the least.
Robertson, though, knew better. Whether you were a homeless addict or a practicing physician, he'd watched Mr. George treat you with the same care and respect.
"He's a true role model," Robertson said.
And so one evening last month, he rallied the community. Mr. George was about to mark his 86th birthday and what better time, Robertson thought, to show him their appreciation for the bits of wisdom tempered with compassion and absence of judgment, for standing in the gap over the years for so many suffering a need, for staying put even when it no longer seemed safe to do so.
As his children, grandchildren and clients old and new looked on, Mr. George was suddenly on the receiving end of a community he has looked after for most of life. There were speeches and champagne toasts to his love and longevity, dancing and a proclamation from the City of Atlanta declaring Aug. 25 George Axam Day. Some said they were hoping to one day get the city to change McDaniel Street to George Axam.
“We gave him his flowers,” said Robertson, one of Axam’s newest patrons. “We wanted him to have the chance to enjoy this moment.”
Axam started cutting hair when he was just a whiff of a boy with a pair scissors on the front porch of his childhood home.
When he moved from Tarversville south of Macon to Atlanta in 1945, he attended Washington High Night School.
Two years later in 1947, the same year he was drafted into the U.S. Army, he met and married Dorimell Borders.
Leaving his new bride was the hardest thing he ever did but the draft meant he had no choice in the matter.
At least he had his scissors and that made Mr. George pretty popular with his comrades.
It didn’t matter that he wasn’t licensed to cut hair. He was good at it.
Afterall, Mr. George said recently, cutting hair “is like kissing and hugging.”
“No one teaches you,” he said. “It just comes natural.”
His tour in Okinawa ended in 1951 when Mr. George was reunited with Dorimell.
That same year he landed a job as a mail handler with the U.S. Postal Service but even then he continued to cut hair.
Despite working two full-time jobs, he still managed to be present for his six children, careful to take time off for summer vacations to Daytona Beach, Fla., to teach them to garden or the fine points of painting the house, the importance of caring for community.
“My dad taught us that it was our duty to help someone in need,” said Chermaine Axam-Wilkins. “Even though there were six of us, we always found room for one more.”
Mr. George would eventually earn his barber’s license in 1952 but it wasn’t until 1956 that he arrived on McDaniel Street, establishing a kind of defacto community center where generations of African-American men have gathered to swap stories and, well, talk trash.
Longtime customers like Casey Dantzler and the Rev. Henry Johnson, their hair thinned or grayed by age, still show up once or twice a week for trims or just to catch up with old acquaintances.
Dantzler was four years old when he first sat in Axam’s red overstuffed Naugahyde chair and he’s 48 now.
“Me and my six brothers would come every two weeks,” said Dantzler. “To this day, I don’t trust anybody with my head but Mr. George.”
Douglas Bristol, a history professor at the University of Southern Mississippi and author of the Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom, said barbers like Axam have long been considered leaders in their communities and their shops the black man’s country club.
“It’s the one place that black men can gather and speak their mind without arousing suspicion,” Bristol said. "What strikes me is that even when people move out of the community they come back. It’s the town center.”
In the decades since he came to Castleberry Hill, Mr. George has arrived each day at 9 a.m. and stays late in the evening, carving out a life for his family of six children, all of whom he managed to put through college. One, he says with pride, is a practicing dentist, another owns a cleaning business, one's a lawyer and another is a marketing professional.
And in keeping with the black barbers before him, he has personally trained three young apprentices, all of whom went on to become master barbers. Two still work in his shop.
“He always tried to give back,” Dantzler said during a recent visit. “That’s what I love about him. I just wish I could turn out like him.”
For his part, Mr. George said he’s enjoyed a good life.
“I take Viagra. I slept eight hours last night. I don’t owe anything but taxes,” he said.
He admits having been a workaholic but he has no regrets.
His doctor recently gave him a good bill of health and despite having been robbed three times, he’s never been hurt.
"I just pray and hope for the best.”
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