racial

© Benjamin H. Groff II — Truth Endures / benandsteve.com

July 14, 2026

Dad taught me so much, while saying nothing at all…

My father never gave speeches about treating people fairly.

Groff’s Barber Shop – Equality Before Its Time.

He didn’t quote famous leaders. He didn’t lecture me about prejudice or equality. In fact, I don’t ever remember us having a conversation about race.

He simply lived his life in a way that made those conversations unnecessary.

Growing up, my father was the only barber in our little Oklahoma town of about 750 souls. It was the 1960s, and like many small towns across America, ours had invisible lines that everyone seemed to understand. One section of town was where the Black families lived. I never really understood why. To me, it was simply another neighborhood where some of my classmates lived.

Every so often, a Black mother would bring her four boys into my father’s barber shop for haircuts. It never failed. Someone sitting in the waiting area would quietly get up, walk out the door, and leave.

As a little boy, I didn’t understand what I had just witnessed.

Neither, it seemed, did my father.

Without missing a beat, he would drape the barber’s cape around the first young man and go to work as though nothing unusual had happened. If I happened to ask about the customers who left, Dad’s answer was always the same.

“They’ll be back,” he would say. “I’m the only barber in town. Otherwise, they’ll have to drive forty miles for a haircut.”

There was never anger in his voice. Never judgment. Never a sermon.

Just the quiet confidence of a man who knew what was right and wasn’t about to change because someone else disapproved.

On Sunday mornings, we’d often visit families in that same neighborhood. I played with kids who happened to be Black, but to me they were simply classmates and friends. Our school wasn’t large enough for anyone to disappear into the crowd. My graduating class would eventually reach only twenty-eight students.

Then I started watching the evening news.

Night after night, television showed marches, protests, violence, and hatred taking place around the country. I remember thinking how strange it all seemed. I honestly believed most people lived the way my father did.

One summer, during a trip to the Oklahoma State Fair, I wandered into one of the exhibit buildings after I had seen everything that interested me. An older Black gentleman was working there as a maintenance employee, keeping an eye on the building.

We struck up a conversation.

Before long, we were swapping stories as though we’d known each other for years. I told him about my hometown, my father, and the barber shop. Before leaving, I casually said, “If you’re ever out our way, stop in.”

I never expected him to take me up on the invitation.

Several weeks later, I was cleaning my bedroom when my father called me into the living room.

“There’s a gentleman here who says he knows you,” Dad said with a puzzled smile. “And he insists I must be a perfect father to have raised such a son.”

Standing there was my friend from the State Fair.

I couldn’t believe he had actually come.

We spent the afternoon walking around our place, catching up as if no time had passed at all. Looking back, I doubt either of us thought much about the color of our skin. We were simply two people who had enjoyed each other’s company.

It wasn’t until years later, when the television miniseries Roots aired, that I began to understand what so many Americans had experienced. Like millions of others, I watched every episode. But I also watched the conversations that followed. Neighbors talked. Classmates talked. Adults revealed opinions I had never heard before.

For the first time, I realized prejudice wasn’t something found only on the evening news. Sometimes it lived much closer to home.

After graduating and entering law enforcement, my father’s quiet example stayed with me.

One evening I watched another officer use what I believed was excessive force during an arrest. I couldn’t undo what had happened, but I could make certain the young man wasn’t alone afterward. I volunteered to transport him to jail.

On the drive, I explained how he could file a civil rights complaint if he believed his rights had been violated. Before we arrived, I asked him to promise me he would follow through.

When I returned from my scheduled days off, I was instructed to report to the Major’s office.

My assignment changed.

For what seemed like forever, I cleaned dog kennels at the city’s animal shelter.

Some might say I paid a price.

I never saw it that way.

Long before I wore a badge, I had watched a barber quietly refuse to let other people’s prejudice determine how he would treat another human being.

He never gave me a lecture about equality.

He never told me how to live my life.

He simply cut hair.

And somewhere between that old barber chair, a surprise visit from a friend I met at the State Fair, and the lessons that followed me into a police uniform, I learned that integrity isn’t something you talk about.

It’s something you do.

My father probably never realized he was teaching me one of the greatest lessons of my life.

Then again, maybe that’s how the best teachers always work.

Author’s Note

Longtime readers of benandsteve.com may recognize portions of this story. Over the years, these memories have appeared as part of other, larger stories on the blog. However, they have never been told as a story of their own.

As I continue writing and publishing my life story, I’ve come to realize that this particular memory deserved to stand on its own. The events surrounding my father’s barber shop, my unexpected friendship at the Oklahoma State Fair, and the lessons those experiences carried into my years in law enforcement are explored in greater detail throughout my memoir.

Sometimes a single moment in life is important enough to be remembered twice—once as part of a larger journey, and once for the lesson it taught.

–––– Benjamin