There is a moment in almost every Black barbershop when the clippers slow down, somebody says something that catches the room’s attention, and suddenly everybody is in the conversation.
Politics. Crime. Family. Money. The neighborhood. The Browns. The schools. The courts.
Nobody called a meeting.
Nobody sent an agenda.
But the conversation is real.
That is exactly why The Chair is coming back.
Beginning Saturday, September 12, judicial candidates Diane Russell, Daryl T. Dennie and Fallon Radigan will begin moving through Black-owned barbershops, salons and community spaces across Greater Cleveland for something very different from the standard political campaign appearance.
No ballroom.
No long banquet program.
No candidate standing 30 feet away behind a podium.
Instead, voters will get something increasingly rare in politics: proximity.
The candidates will enter the places where Black Cleveland already gathers, listens, debates and decides what it thinks.
And this year, one of Cleveland’s most recognizable barbers will help promote the effort.
Waverly Willis Knows What the Chair Can Do
Waverly Willis, founder and executive director of The Urban Barber Association, will serve as one of the promoters of The Chair.
That matters.
Willis has spent years making the argument that a barber chair can be much more than the place where someone gets a fade.
Through the Urban Barber Association and his Urban Kutz barbershops, Willis has helped use barbershops as platforms for health education, blood-pressure screenings, prostate-cancer awareness, substance-abuse education, youth mentoring and other community outreach. He has worked with institutions including health organizations and local community partners to reach people in a setting where trust already exists. (WaverlyWillis)
The Urban Barber Association itself was built around that idea: barbershops and beauty salons can function as neighborhood institutions, connecting people to information, resources and one another. Willis has described the larger mission as using those relationships to create conversations capable of producing generational change. (The Urban Barber Association)
That makes The Chair a natural extension of work he has already been doing.
This time, however, the conversation is about the people asking voters for one of the most powerful positions in local government.
A seat on the bench.
Black Barbershops Have Never Been “Just Barbershops”
To understand why this tour matters, you have to understand what the Black barbershop and beauty salon have represented for generations.
They are among the few places where a construction worker, a lawyer, a teenager, a business owner, a retiree and an elected official can all walk through the same door and become part of the same conversation.
Historically, Black barbershops became gathering places for political discussion, Black newspapers, voter registration and community organizing. Researchers have documented their role not simply as businesses, but as civic and cultural institutions. (PubMed Central (PMC))
Beauty salons have carried a similar significance.
Research examining Black barbershops and salons has repeatedly found something government agencies, political campaigns and corporations spend enormous amounts of money trying to manufacture:
trust.
Long-term relationships between barbers, stylists and their customers have allowed these businesses to become places where people discuss health, family, community problems and issues they may not comfortably discuss somewhere else. Researchers have described them as community anchors, safe havens and places of social support. (ScienceDirect)
The Chair recognizes something simple.
If you want to understand a community, sometimes you should stop asking the community to come to you.
Go where the community already is.
Judicial Candidates Without the Protective Bubble
Judicial campaigns can be among the strangest races in politics.
The consequences are enormous.
Judges can make decisions affecting a person’s freedom, family, finances, employment and future.
Yet many voters enter the voting booth knowing less about judicial candidates than virtually anybody else on the ballot.
They may recognize a name.
They may have seen a yard sign.
They may have received a slate card.
But do they know how that person thinks?
The Chair gives voters an opportunity to find out.
Diane Russell brings more than two decades of legal experience and a personal connection to the barbershop, having worked as a barber under her father before beginning her legal career.
Daryl T. Dennie brings nearly three decades of experience across the legal system, including work as a prosecutor, public defender, sole practitioner and civil litigator.
Fallon Radigan has spent nearly 17 years as a courtroom litigator, working as both a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney.
Three candidates.
Three different professional journeys.
And one opportunity for Black voters to meet them outside the protective bubble of traditional politics.
No Podium. No Script. Just the Room.
That may be the most interesting part of The Chair.
A candidate can prepare for a debate.
A campaign can write talking points.
A consultant can polish an answer.
The barbershop is harder to choreograph.
Someone may ask about sentencing.
Someone else may ask about bail.
Another person may want to know how a candidate views fairness, discretion, rehabilitation, public safety or the treatment of people who walk into a courtroom without money or influence.
And then somebody sitting three chairs away may challenge the answer.
That is how real conversations happen.
Candidates will have an opportunity to speak, but they will also have to listen.
Voters will have an opportunity to evaluate something that cannot always be measured on a résumé:
How does this person engage with people when there is no stage separating them?
The First Stops
Saturday, September 12, 2026
Urban Kutz Barbershop
11106 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland
11:00 AM
Urban Kutz Barbershop
4491 Pearl Road, Cleveland
1:00 PM
Wednesday, September 16, 2026
The Midtown Tech Hive
6815 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland
6:00 PM
Saturday, September 19, 2026
Today’s Cut & Style
2172 North Taylor Road, Cleveland Heights
11:00 AM
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Studio Zero — for the CREATIVES
1670 E. 40th Street, Cleveland
6:00 PM
Saturday, September 26, 2026
Diamond Cut Barbershop
5139 Superior Avenue, Cleveland
11:00 AM
Saturday, October 3, 2026
Reverence Design Team
2062 S. Taylor Road
11:30 AM
Additional stops are expected as candidate schedules become available.
Come See Them Before You Vote for Them
There is something different about seeing a candidate five feet away instead of seeing that candidate on a campaign mailer.
There is something different about hearing an answer in a barbershop where another voter can immediately ask the follow-up question.
And there is something powerful about taking democracy into spaces that have quietly helped hold Black communities together for generations.
The Chair is not asking voters to support Diane Russell, Daryl T. Dennie or Fallon Radigan because they appeared at a barbershop.
It is giving voters the opportunity to do something far more important.
Meet them.
Question them.
Listen to them.
Judge them for yourself.
The candidates are asking for a seat on the bench.
Before Election Day, Black Cleveland is offering them another seat first.
The Chair.