Mel & Abe's Barber Shop Provides More Than Hair Cuts To The Phenix City Community

Mel & Abe’s Barber Shop provides more than just haircuts in South Phenix City, the two brothers provide their clients with an education in history, politics and a sense of community.

Be it through a kindhearted joke, a conversation about an issue plaguing Phenix City, or a black history lesson about the Nation of Islam the brothers, Mel Long and Ibrahim Muhammad, have created a lasting legacy at 422 S. Seale Road since 1992.

Charles Mathews has been getting his hair cut there for more than 20 years.

“I like coming here because of the good conversation, open conversation about our neighborhood and our community,” said Mathews who is retired from the military. “We talk about what changes we need to make in the community. There’s just a good spirit here. Mel has been my friend for a long time. As a matter of fact, I grew up with them and I’ve known them all my life. So, they are sort of like family.”

Long said it’s very important to educate his customers about what’s going on in the community.

“A lot of people don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “A lot of people didn’t know the reason they wanted to fire the superintendent. As a community, we didn’t want to have to pay out her contract then we got to pay for the lawsuit and then take a chance on a new person and pay them too.  That’s why the community came together on that because we need our money to stay in the school system, not go out of the school system.”

It seems there have been some issues raised about Superintendent Janet Sherrod’s management style.

Long said this was similar to when some people wanted to fire City Manager Wallace Hunter.

“He was going to sue them. Then they were going to have to pay him and a new person,” Long said. “That didn’t make any sense.”

He said it is important for people to stay informed about what’s going on in the city and the county.

“A lot of our people are not educated about what is going on in the city, until something hits them and then they want people to rally around them,” Long said.

He said it is important for the community to get to know and rally behind their leaders.

“We were the first ones to do a town hall meeting in Phenix City. We stopped the landfill. We stopped a salvage yard. We got those apartments torn down across the street from Heap Cheap,” Long said.  “We’ve been doing so much stuff over the years, it’s hard to remember it all.  We’ve gotten abandoned and raggedy houses torn down.”

Currently, the shop includes the brothers, their nephew and another barber.

“It’s always been family oriented. I love that,” Muhammad said. “I had one son who took up the trade, and one son that doesn’t have any patience for it. I have nieces who do hair, as well and cousins. The trade is in the family.”

Likewise, Mel has two sons who are in the industry.

“We keep it going and we keep it in the family,” Long said.

The brothers say they enjoy working with each other and being in business together.

“Family is very important. Sometimes we forget that, but it’s very important,” Muhammad said. “We might be mad at each other, but if something happens, we worry about each other.”

Being in business for 33 years is a testament to the brothers’ business philosophy.

“You have to have patience when you are dealing with different personalities when they come in the barbershop,” Muhammad said. “Then you have to have a love for it. If you ain’t got the love for it, you ain’t gonna last long in this business. That’s why some people start off with the love for it, but over a period of time they lose it.”

He said he looks forward to talking with his customers and continuing conversations they started the week before.

“Don’t’ get me wrong, it hurts sometimes to be standing up all day in one spot,” Muhammad said. “But life is good.”

The brothers hold an annual community appreciation event, which began small but has grown to include hundreds.

“The community is good to us. These people make us, so why can’t we give back to our community, when our community gives back to us,” Long said. “We started off doing a small anniversary celebration for ourselves, then people started coming up and then it got big by the fifth year. The community started stopping by, so we just made it a community event.”