A Biography of Clyde “Youngblood” Deshazer

In North Omaha, history doesn’t just live in brick buildings, giant old houses, dignified regal churches or hidden ancient cemeteries. For a lot of people, it lives in smooth swiveling chairs, the scrape of a straight razor, the smell of witch hazel, and the hum of clippers running morning until night. This is a biography of one of the most popular barbers in North Omaha history, Clyde “Youngblood” Deshazer (1944-2026).

From Arkansas to the Big O

This is a 1965 ad for the Tuxedo Barbershop on 24th Street featuring Clyde "Youngblood" Deshazer. — This is a 1965 ad for the Tuxedo Barbershop on 24th Street featuring Clyde “Youngblood” Deshazer.

To almost everyone in the community, he was simply “Youngblood.” He cut hair for everyday people, politicians, kids heading to their first day of school, dads, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers. If you were a Black man raised in North Omaha between the Civil Rights movement and the 2020s, chances are high you sat under his cape at least once.

He was an anchor on Ames Avenue, but his story started far south of Nebraska. Like tens of thousands of other African Americans Americans during the Great Migration, Clyde Deshazer came north for a future.

Born on February 17, 1944, to farmers Frank (1905-1960) and Mattie (1908-1981) Deshazer, Clyde was raised in rural Arkansas. Defined by segregation and backbreaking manual farming, he came to Nebraska for industrial wages and fresh air. Joining the steady flow of Southern families who remade the Near North Side after World War II, Clyde arrived and dug in.

They brought their faith with them. Clyde was part of a large, tight-knit family that weathered losses of his brother Nathaniel (1935-2017) and sisters Burnice (1926–1989), Frankie B Mary Belle (1928–2010), Artie Pearl (1929–?), and Elizabeth (1936–2024). Together with his wife, Vernetta, Clyde raised three daughters, Beverly, Yvette, and LaVersia. Their family roots took firm hold inside the Joy of Life Church of God in Christ.

For Clyde, family came first—but work came right behind it.

Working for the World-Herald

Before dedicating his working life exclusively to the barber trade, Deshazer spent long hours downtown on the noisy, greasy mechanical press floors of the Omaha World-Herald.

Throughout the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, Clyde didn’t just run machinery—he worked as a boss and supervisor. On those press floors, younger Black workers found in Deshazer a no-nonsense manager who led by example, commanded respect, and taught the quiet discipline required to thrive in a demanding industrial workplace.

The press room paid wages, but barbering waited for him.

Moving Blocks

This is a 2010 advertisement for Youngblood's Barber & Beauty Shop in North Omaha. — This is a 2010 advertisement for Youngblood’s Barber & Beauty Shop in North Omaha.

Black barbershops in North Omaha have always been like town halls where debates, the news, and social time were ongoing. Before iPhones or neighborhood websites, you went to the barbershop to find out what Omaha was really doing, how sports were looking, and find out who needed a hand.

“Youngblood” cut right alongside the heavyweights of the era. People who got haircuts in the 1960s remembered the circuit: Ernie Chambers worked on North 24th with Dan Goodwin; Sammy D. had things poppin’ by the pool hall on 24th; people stopped by the Blue Lion for cuts, and Youngblood came up through those ranks. Partnering with Cardell around 40th and Bedford, that shop was called Mister C’s.

Then he set down permanent roots just up the hill.

Youngblood’s Barbershop was opened in 1977 by 40th Street and Ames Avenue, where it stayed for nearly fifty years.

Youngblood was a master of his craft. A lot of people thought of him like an artist with clippers, razor, and shears. His shop became a community institution that survived the City of Omaha’s divestment scheme focused on North Omaha, economic downturns, and changing urban landscapes. Longtime North Omaha residents took pride in the fact that Clyde knew almost every family in town. If you sat down, he didn’t just ask how you wanted your hair tapered; he asked how your father, your uncle, or how grandparents were doing, too.

People said Clyde had a quick, low-key sense of humor and was also an unshakeable mentor. Over five decades, Youngblood trained up a whole generation of younger barbers, teaching them customer service, business basics, and clipper control before they went on to open their own shops around Omaha and across the country. Even as an elder, he stayed behind the chair, keeping clippers in hand to cut the hair of visiting families and grandchildren returning home for Native Omaha Days.

A Community Legacy

This is a 2009 newspaper clipping mentioning Youngblood's Barber and Beauty Shop in North Omaha. — This is a 2009 newspaper clipping mentioning Youngblood’s Barber and Beauty Shop in North Omaha.

In late August 2026, Clyde “Youngblood” Deshazer passed away at the age of 82.

Bringing together the entire community through Thomas Funeral Home and Joy of Life Church of God in Christ, tributes for his homegoing are flooding in from longtime patrons, civic leaders, and neighborhood youth who remembered him as the heart of Ames Avenue. He left behind his wife Vernetta, three daughters, four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and thousands of heads lined clean over six decades of steady barbering.

Remembering Youngblood

Commercial corridors change, and buildings come and go along North Omaha’s streets, but the stories swapped over the drone of the clippers, the standard of dignity Clyde demanded in his shop, and the imprint he left on generations of men in the community remain etched into the living history of North Omaha.

Several people are calling for a street to be named after him. With several other barber and beauty shops crammed around it, I think the intersection of North 40th and Ames should be renamed “Youngblood’s Corner” in his memory. We’ll see what happens in the future.