Ronzell Buckner: A Living Legacy for Columbus

Lifelong Columbus resident and businessman extraordinaire Ronzell Buckner has done everything.

“I always tried to do something different in my community, so that we would have a variety of all different types of businesses that were in our community. Really, I went from a daycare owner to a nightclub owner to a beauty supply owner to beauty salons and to the restaurant,” he said during a recent interview with the Courier.

Courier Eco Latino Publisher Wane Hailes said he remembers going to his salon when he came to Columbus from Ohio to become the Director of the A.J. McClung YMCA.

“At the time his shop was where his restaurant Skippers is today. That was a booming place. It was easy getting in and getting out, and you met a lot of people. I got to meet a whole lot of people and being new to the area, that was important," Hailes said. "Turnaround Columbus was started in his shop."

Being in business is nothing new to Buckner, who started his first business when he was just 17 years old.                                         

“I started a business as soon as I finished high school, but I started part-time while I was working a full-time job,” he said. “I always felt that when you can sign your name on the back (of a paycheck) and your name is on the front too, then you can move forward. As long as we just sign on the back, then someone else holds your livelihood in their hands.”

One of the reasons he started his business was that he also married at 17.

“I was a barber. You have to know how to work your way up the ladder,” he said. “I married my high school sweetheart, and I had to get a job because I always believed that if you marry a person then you have a responsibility to that person. I had a responsibility to take care of her so we could get our own place, and we did.

“We worked together, and we supported each other, and so I was able to move forward. But you have to take your time, and you have to always remember everybody that tells you they love you, don’t’ love you. But if you find the right partner then you can be successful and live a good life and enjoy life. You may not have everything that you want, but if you have love and peace and God, you will be okay.”

The 1964 graduate of George Washington Carver High School has been a lifelong advocate for entrepreneurship, helping and encouraging dozens to start their own businesses in Columbus throughout the years. Today, he believes that young people need to work for themselves.

“We need to get involved in our city to show our young people what they can become. Let them see something,” Buckner said, who has five children.

Hailes, who also got to know Buckner because he was one of his YMCA board members, said he has always wanted to see young people in business for themselves.

“He would have kids come down and sell fruits and vegetables in front of his store,” Hailes said. “He got us a storefront at Columbus Square Mall that we didn’t have to pay for, and the kids would print T-shirt in the back and sell them in the front. He always talked about entrepreneurship and the fact that people need to work for themselves.”

Being born just after the completion of World War II, a baby boomer, he saw black-owned businesses in his community and understood the importance of continuing this tradition. Today, it saddens him to see so many other ethnic groups set up shop in the Black community, while Black people stay on the sidelines.

“If everybody else can come into your community and set businesses up and make a good living, why can’t we do it,” he questioned. “We think everybody’s thing is better than what we have. Before integration we had a strong business community. Integration helped us, but it also hurt us because afterwards we didn’t think nothing that we had was good enough.”

He said he attributes his success to a conversation with a black businessowner when he was a young man.

“I knew a businessman who owned a shoe shop on Cusseta Road. His name was Mr. Mack. I would go there to get my shoes shined, and at this time I was a hair designer. Mr. Mack told me if you want to be successful you need to find someone that’s successful and he took his hand and clapped his hands, and said you get around that person and you pattern yourself after them,” Buckner said. “There are a lot of people around this city who own their own business who have worked for me. If you learned something from me, don’t be selfish with it, pass it on. I patterned myself after Mr. Mack and it made a difference in my life.”

His son Shannon Buckner had a front-row seat to the pattern, but said he didn’t realize how important that was until he became a businessman himself.

“My dad was ahead of his time,” said Shannon Buckner, owner of The Boyz Barbershop and Salon on University Avenue in Columbus. “He owned a daycare center in the early 70s when people didn’t really own daycare centers, much less a Black man. I can remember going to hair shows with him and afterwards we would go to people’s houses. These people were pioneers in the hair industry. One of them was Jerry Reading who created the Jerry Curl.”

He said Reading was a chemist who would send his products out to people he knew to get feedback, adding that his dad was somewhat of a hair scientist.

“If my dad did your hair, it was like going to a doctor. He would pull your hair up on a microscope ," said Shannon.

He recalls going to the Fountainebleau Hotel in Miami to attend hair shows, where his father would learn about the new colors and styles for the season from white practitioners and then bring those ideas and techniques back to Columbus where he didn’t just do them on his clients, but he also taught classes to other barbers and beauticians.

"Just to be around him but not realizing it as a kid, he was a platform artist and there were hundreds of people sitting in a room listening to his words," said Shannon. "It was kind of an ordinary childhood, but I didn’t realize how unordinary it was. Him being in that industry allowed us as a household to have great opportunities and have a good time in life.”

Today, as Columbus is plagued by youth violence, Buckner said business leaders hold the key to stop this cycle.

“We, as businesspeople, are going to have to take some kids in high school and give them a job and pay them,” Buckner said. “The kids that have worked for me and with me they are the people that own the businesses and won’t be selfish and will pass it on. Take some kids in and teach them and tell them to pass it on. That is the way you’re going to have to do it, but we have to get our people in our community and in our city to understand they must support our Black businesses too.”

He said he is tired of seeing Black people support white and other minority businesses, when those people don’t come to our communities to shop with us. However, he did acknowledge that some Black businessowners need to step up their game.

“You have to run a business like a business. You can’t have people standing on the outside of the business,” he said. “If you run your business like a business, they will come. But if they are afraid to come up to your door, they will never come inside.”

Buckner, who closed Skippers Seafood on Buena Vista Road after the extensive construction slowed businesses because it was too hard to get in and out said he still plans to remain active in his community where he has lived since 1952.

“I’m going to miss the people” he said.

Rozelle Buckner and his son Shannon Buckner.