Through the window of Bill's Barbershop (Pt 2)

Let us journey back to the winter of 1958 when my grandfather William Bryant came home to his loving wife after another hard day's work as a gas line repairman for the Philadelphia Gas Company.

- Khabyr Hadas

His clothes were soiled, filled with deep oil stains, and spotted with countless patches of dry sweat. He would politely ask my grandmother to sit down to join him at the kitchen table. Once seated, Elizabeth took notice of her husband's strong and callous hands holding a lease, a business plan, and cash that he had withdrawn from the bank earlier that day. He looked her straight in her beautiful brown eyes and told her that he had just quit the Gas Company and that he would be soon opening Bill's Barbershop. The rest is history!

Many people, including close family members and friends, said that William Bryant was insane to walk away from the gas company. After all, even in 2024, working for PGW is still considered a stable and decent-paying job for a Black man or woman. So, one can only imagine what a job like that meant to a Black family over (66) years ago. One of the daily occurrences that fueled his decision was how degrading he felt when white foremen and supervisors would peer down on him as he would labor in the deep, dark, dug-out trenches of Philadelphia's old streets.