NORTHFIELD — Buntrock Commons at St. Olaf College is usually home to big musical gatherings and lively cultural events, but every other Monday, it welcomes a different kind of buzz.
Tucked away at the end of the building, a small auditorium sat dark and nearly empty on a recent Monday. A selfie ring light and an LED bar framing a single chair were the only sources of light needed for the day’s performances. A steady stream of Rod Wave songs coming from a cell phone was the only sound.
That is, until Daryl Ford turned on his gold BaByliss hair clippers. While most barbers are off on Mondays, by 11 a.m., Ford had already cut hair for four people.
“It’s been a busy morning,” he said.
Ford provides a vital service to St. Olaf students like Aidan Lloyd, a 21-year-old senior from Chicago. Lloyd helped establish the pop-up barber shop after struggling to find a barber who knew how to style and cut Black hair in Northfield, a small college town about 40 miles south of the Twin Cities.
“Being able to look in the mirror and know that the person I’ve seen in the mirror matches the person that I’ve seen inside my head—it’s an amazing feeling,” Lloyd said.
Being able to look in the mirror and know that the person I’ve seen in the mirror matches the person that I’ve seen inside my head—it’s an amazing feeling.
Aidan Lloyd, senior at St. olaf college
Every two weeks, Ford makes the 45-minute drive from Trendz Barbershop in Apple Valley, where he works, to St. Olaf to cut hair. Other barbers from the shop also make the drive on occasion.
“It makes us feel good to come out here, help these guys, and take care of them and get them fresh,” Ford said.
In Chicago, visiting a Black barbershop was an essential part of Lloyd’s culture, identity, and upbringing. But when he got to St. Olaf, his only option for a haircut was almost an hour’s drive away.
Every two weeks, he and a group of other Black student-athletes would pile into his white Ford Explorer, make the drive to the Twin Cities, and spend their Saturday at different barber shops.
“It’d be like a lot of that back and forth, like people getting frustrated trying to figure out how to get up there and get a haircut,” Lloyd said.
That all changed once Lloyd and a St. Olaf student group called Oles Against Inequality started its own student-run barber shop in 2021. The shop’s goal is to ensure that all students, particularly students of color, have access to barbers with experience in cutting different hair textures.
Now, students of color at St. Olaf, who make up about 22 percent of the college’s population, can get their hair cut by an expert right on campus. And Lloyd can easily get his “fresh fade” every two weeks.
A school fund pays the traveling barbers half of the cost of a student’s haircut and the student pays the remaining $20.
Gio Green, a 22-year-old senior at St. Olaf is from Minneapolis and had a barber in the Twin Cities he saw frequently, but still identified with the struggle other students faced.
“You go a month or two without a haircut, you start looking real rough,” Green said. “And it just starts kind of deteriorating your confidence.”
Green said students would sometimes cut each other’s hair in dorm bathrooms before the barbershop opened.
“You can’t go to any of the barber shops in town; they don’t know how to cut your hair. You can’t go to a Sports Clips, or a Great Clips,” Green said.
The student-run shop’s popularity brought Lloyd, Green, and other members of the football team to the attention of CBS Sports, which premiered a documentary called “Crown” in February, Black History Month.
The film explored this country’s complicated relationship with Black hair through a sports lens and featured speakers like former and current NBA players Carmelo Anthony, Jalen Rose, and Jimmy Butler, along with commentary from Lloyd.
The shop’s popularity has gone beyond its original purpose—serving St. Olaf’s Black community— to cater to a variety of students.
“I think when people would pass by the shop and hear the music playing and stuff and get interested, it opened people’s minds, and people started coming to the shop,” Lloyd said.
I think when people would pass the shop and hear the music playing and stuff and get interested, it opened people’s minds, and people started coming to the shop.
Aidan Lloyd, senior at St. olaf college
Since the shop’s inception, Lloyd has seen non-Black students visit, including some women.
Ford said he’s helped guide some of newer clients looking to get their first fade haircut.
“Sometimes I make recommendations depending on how their hair looks,” he said. “You know, kind of the style they’re going for—I might say, ‘Hey, the brush fade might look good for you, or the taper.’”
Lloyd and Green and many of the students directly involved with the barber shop are set to graduate soon, but hope the shop becomes a permanent fixture at St. Olaf. A school spokesperson said there’s been ongoing discussion about a permanent space for the shop.
“I’m trying to find someone to take over,” Lloyd said. “A permanent office, too.”
