The Allentown area changed in the five years Raheim Whitehurst was gone.
“I wasn’t seeing many people that I knew from before or anything like that,” he said. “But since I’ve been here over the year, man, I got to know most of the people on this block, the people that live upstairs. It’s like … I just feel a part of the community now, man.”
One year ago is when Whitehurst opened Imperial Cuts and Styles at 31 N. 12 St., revitalizing a location that had hosted a barber shop or beauty salon for decades — and giving himself a second chance after a young adulthood in and out of trouble.
“The community is thriving around here, and I’m happy to have my shop be a part of this community,” he said.
Since it opened, Imperial Cuts has seen a lot of changes as well. Whitehurst installed new chairs, lights, an ATM and a television. And, he’s been joined by a barber with over 40 years of experience, hair stylists and a makeup artist who does horror-themed makeup and prosthetics.
Whitehurst said his business’ success after he spent five years in prison, where he got his barber’s license, proves a point.
“I’m glad that I can show people by my actions that if you stick to what your plans are and work hard at it and stick to it, it can happen,” he said.
Aysha Burton, who provides services including braids, quick weaves and twists, said she’s “felt at home” since joining the business in June.
“I’ve been braiding literally my whole life, I would say since elementary school,” said Burton, who also teaches dance at Kreative Dance Complex in Bethlehem. “So I always had that talent in my back pocket.”
“It is Black-owned, I am African American, and [Whitehurst] just wanted to broaden his options and have Black hairstylists, braiders and all of that,” she said. “So that stood out to me as well. … And he’s very straight-cut, but a personable type of person. So I just felt comfortable being there. I felt like I was a good fit to add to the barbershop.”
It helps that Burton enjoys meeting new people.
“I always get interesting people in my chair and I love that they walk out of my chair feeling beautiful or feeling like they could connect with their hairstylist,” she said. “It makes me happy.”
Makeup artist Shante Whitehurst — Raheim’s cousin — works alongside him on the Imperial staff.
Shante specializes in special effects and horror makeup, but offers more standard makeup applications as well, for weddings, birthdays and other events. She’ll add eyelash extensions to her services this month.
“Makeup is washing away the gray and the white and showing you there is still beauty in the world,” she said. “I like the fact that people can come to me as a makeup artist and say, ‘Hey, I don’t like this or I don’t like that.’ And as a makeup artist, I can tell them, ‘Well, that’s one of the most beautiful features on you. Let me enhance it for you, or let me show you how we can work with this scar you have on your face.’ I don’t look at makeup as covering up something. I look at makeup as enhancing what is already beautiful.”
She enjoys working in Allentown, she added, not only for its talent and creativity, but also for its sense of family and community.
“I know store owners that will do bookbag giveaways, my fiancé owns a restaurant and he’s giving out free food to the kids from school [and] Raheim and his shop who’s giving out haircuts to go back to school,” Shante said. “It’s the family within Allentown that kind of makes the city wonderful and great to work in.”
Among the first people Raheim Whitehurst brought on board was Jules Roderick, who started working at Imperial Cuts in early September 2024, providing haircuts for children, women and men.
Over his 40-year barber career, Roderick said he’s seen the city and craft change over the decades.
“When I was a kid, I used to go to the barbershop often, [and] it was a little different back then,” he said. “Parents dropped you off at the barbershop at 8 o’clock in the morning, you didn’t come out of there till 1 o’clock because it was a place where you just sat and you waited your turn, but also you learned from your elders. It was great conversation, it was family-oriented, so that just drew me to wanting to do this. And I was very artistic, so anything dealing with my hands, whether it was drawing or creating, I was interested in, and that just drew me to … one day, I was just like, ‘I want to do this.’ “
Mr. Clyde’s Barber Shop in Allentown, owned by Clyde Bosket, provided some of Roderick’s earliest education. He called it “the Black barbershop of the city.”
Roderick recalled when he was 11 years old and asked Bosket’s son, Rick, to teach him about the barber craft, “and I just went from there.”
“[Clyde Bosket] was pretty much a heavy figure not only in our community, but in the city of Allentown, period,” Roderick said. “And that’s why I always mention him when it comes to what I do because if it wasn’t for him having that barbershop, I don’t know if I would have ever gotten into it.”
Roderick said people don’t quite love or respect barber work like they did in decades past. Many barbers treat their shops more as “quick money” than a commitment, he said, and gentrification has chipped away at a sense of community in the city.
Roderick’s clients and the people of Allentown keep him going, however. He believes in speaking with actions, working hard and as a team, building clientele even when the money isn’t always good, acting as a counselor, building relationships and being the most present barber, if not the best.
“Old school” values, as Roderick often described.
And there’s hope with Imperial Cuts, Roderick said, where they’ve replicated some of the qualities of Mr. Clyde’s, such as a family-friendly atmosphere and opportunities for mentorship, especially for Whitehurst.
“[Whitehurst] picks my brain on a lot of things and I give it to him because I want to see his shop be successful, whether I’m there or not,” he said. “Because in reality, I’m not going to be there forever, so at the end of the day, I want him to be able to carry on and use that mentality of the old school barber game. Because as anything else, old school works. New school looks better, but the old school works.”
Barber Tim Taylor came from old school — his father Darien Mitchell is a barber — but is in some ways a “freshman.”
He started working at Imperial Cuts a few weeks ago, shortly after graduating from the Lehigh Valley Barber and Beauty School in Bethlehem, and has only been cutting hair for about a year.
Taylor worked at warehouse jobs before that, but said that with his father’s work, he’s been around the barber field for a long time.
“My dad had been telling me since I was young, ‘You know what I really think? You should become a barber because the barber field will never go anywhere. Everybody always needs haircuts. People need haircuts for vacations, holidays, birthdays, back to school. So people will always need their haircut because hair always grows,’ ” he said. “So the more that I got older and I kind of got tired of doing warehouses and putting a lot of pain on my back and stuff like that … I was like, ‘You know what, let me just give it a shot.’ “
At Imperial Cuts, Taylor has enjoyed the atmosphere and the opportunities to learn. He loves the people of Allentown, who give him a peace of mind and let him feel at home, and how he makes people feel after a haircut.
“My biggest thing, it was just making people feel good after a cut, you know what I’m saying?” Taylor said. “And having those good conversations, because you get different conversations every time with different people, and it just lets you know how much you are going through the same thing with other people, you know what I’m saying? Like people having the same problems and stuff like that. It could be anything, like [having] bills due or family members in the hospital. So having them conversations with them people, and building that bond, is kind of like more than a haircut.”
The barbershop is open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
