Change Starts With Listening and Learning
The underlying cultural and racial constructs that inform the way we care for our dead are nowhere more obvious than in funeral service throughout our history. In order to understand where green burial fits into cultural norms and expectations around after- death traditions, we need first to understand that history and how it impacts choice—or the lack of it—today. Below you'll find resources to help guide you through the African American experience with death in America.
Listen and Watch
Webinars
Racism in Death Care: Confronting Bias, Ignorance & Prejudice with Anita Grant, MS, BSN, AAS, CFSP and Joe'l S. Anthony, funeral director The Grave Woman
Sayin' It Louder Panel Discussion with Alua Arthur, Joél Simone Anthony, Alica Forneret, Naomi Edmondson, Oceana Sawyer, Lashanna Williams, hosted by End of Life University
Videos and Documentaries
Corona Virus Ripped a Hole in NYC's Black Community by Yousur Al-Hlou and Oma DeKornfeld, New York Times, June 14, 2020
Why Are Black and White Funeral Homes STILL Separate? with Caitlyn Doughty and Dr. Kami Fletcher
Homegoings: Going Home, PBS POV June 25, 2013 film clip
Top 10 Gospel Songs for Black Funerals, The Grave Woman, February, 2020
Memory and Landmarks: Report of the Burial Database Project of Enslaved Americans, Periwinkle Initiative, January 20, 2017
Racism in Death Care: Confronting Bias, Ignorance & Prejudice with Anita Grant, MS, BSN, AAS, CFSP and Joe'l S. Anthony, funeral director The Grave Woman
Sayin' It Louder Panel Discussion with Alua Arthur, Joél Simone Anthony, Alica Forneret, Naomi Edmondson, Oceana Sawyer, Lashanna Williams, hosted by End of Life University
Videos and Documentaries
Corona Virus Ripped a Hole in NYC's Black Community by Yousur Al-Hlou and Oma DeKornfeld, New York Times, June 14, 2020
Why Are Black and White Funeral Homes STILL Separate? with Caitlyn Doughty and Dr. Kami Fletcher
Homegoings: Going Home, PBS POV June 25, 2013 film clip
Top 10 Gospel Songs for Black Funerals, The Grave Woman, February, 2020
Memory and Landmarks: Report of the Burial Database Project of Enslaved Americans, Periwinkle Initiative, January 20, 2017
Read
Books
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Blogs
Is Death Really "The Great Equalizer?" African American Deathways and Inequality in America, An Inteview with death scholar and Professor of African American History Dr. Kami Fletcher, SevenPonds, May 13, 2020
Homegoings: A Black American Funeral Tradition by Jakarta K. Griffin, Anthropological Perspectives on Death, April 23, 2017
Is Death Really "The Great Equalizer?" African American Deathways and Inequality in America, An Inteview with death scholar and Professor of African American History Dr. Kami Fletcher, SevenPonds, May 13, 2020
Homegoings: A Black American Funeral Tradition by Jakarta K. Griffin, Anthropological Perspectives on Death, April 23, 2017
Articles
Fresh to Death: African Americans and RIP T-Shirts, by Dr. Kami Fletcher, Nursing Clio, August 13, 2020
New Digital Archive Explores 133 Years of African American Funeral Programs, Nora McGreevey, Smithsonianmag.com, June 25, 2020
The Unbreakable Spirits of Black Gospel During Funerals, Danielle Broadway, Order of the Good Death, September 18, 2020
Coronavirus Has Changed Mourning at Black Owned Funeral Home by Thomas Navia and Leah Varjacques, Vice, June 8, 2020
African-American Funeral Directors Feeling Stress of Coronavirus Deaths by Ed Stannard, New Haven Register, April 20, 2020
Black Funeral Food Traditions Are an Essential Part of Grieving by Nneka M. Okona, Shondaland, July 25, 2019
Black Funerals Are a Radical Testament to Blackness by Ida Harris, Yes Magazine, August 21, 2019
Grave Matters: Segregation and Racism in U.S. Cemeteries by David Sherman, Order of the Good Death (includes an extensive list of citations), 2019
Jazz Funerals and Second Line Parades by Matt Sakakeeny, Parish 64/Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2018
Race and the Funeral Profession: What Jessica Mitford Missed by Dr. Kami Fletcher, TalkDeath, December 2, 2018
Aretha Franklin's Funeral Fashion Showed us How to Mourn by Doreen St. Felix, The New Yorker, September 1, 2018
Who Gets to Have a Good Death? by Tessa Love, The Establishment, September 28, 2017
The Disappearance of a Distinctively Black Way to Mourn by Tiffany Stanley, The Atlantic, January 26, 2016
African-American woman hopes to break down racial barrier in funeral home business by Doug Moore, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 15, 2015
Emmitt Till's Open Casket Funeral Reignited the Civil Rights Movement, Katie Nodjimbadem, Smithsonianmag.org, September 2, 2015
Government Reburial Parties exhuming Union dead from Seven Pines and Fair Oaks battlefields, Virginia, October 1866, artist's impression, House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College
Material Culture and Social Death: Africa-American Burial Practices by Ross W. Jamieson, JSTOR, 1995
Fresh to Death: African Americans and RIP T-Shirts, by Dr. Kami Fletcher, Nursing Clio, August 13, 2020
New Digital Archive Explores 133 Years of African American Funeral Programs, Nora McGreevey, Smithsonianmag.com, June 25, 2020
The Unbreakable Spirits of Black Gospel During Funerals, Danielle Broadway, Order of the Good Death, September 18, 2020
Coronavirus Has Changed Mourning at Black Owned Funeral Home by Thomas Navia and Leah Varjacques, Vice, June 8, 2020
African-American Funeral Directors Feeling Stress of Coronavirus Deaths by Ed Stannard, New Haven Register, April 20, 2020
Black Funeral Food Traditions Are an Essential Part of Grieving by Nneka M. Okona, Shondaland, July 25, 2019
Black Funerals Are a Radical Testament to Blackness by Ida Harris, Yes Magazine, August 21, 2019
Grave Matters: Segregation and Racism in U.S. Cemeteries by David Sherman, Order of the Good Death (includes an extensive list of citations), 2019
Jazz Funerals and Second Line Parades by Matt Sakakeeny, Parish 64/Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2018
Race and the Funeral Profession: What Jessica Mitford Missed by Dr. Kami Fletcher, TalkDeath, December 2, 2018
Aretha Franklin's Funeral Fashion Showed us How to Mourn by Doreen St. Felix, The New Yorker, September 1, 2018
Who Gets to Have a Good Death? by Tessa Love, The Establishment, September 28, 2017
The Disappearance of a Distinctively Black Way to Mourn by Tiffany Stanley, The Atlantic, January 26, 2016
African-American woman hopes to break down racial barrier in funeral home business by Doug Moore, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 15, 2015
Emmitt Till's Open Casket Funeral Reignited the Civil Rights Movement, Katie Nodjimbadem, Smithsonianmag.org, September 2, 2015
Government Reburial Parties exhuming Union dead from Seven Pines and Fair Oaks battlefields, Virginia, October 1866, artist's impression, House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College
Material Culture and Social Death: Africa-American Burial Practices by Ross W. Jamieson, JSTOR, 1995
Connect
The Collective for Radical Death Studies is an international, professional organization formed to decolonize death studies and radicalize death practice.
National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, Inc., has been active in several iterations since 1926, when it was named the Progressive National Funeral Directors Association, later merging with the National Colored Undertakers Association and the independent National Funeral Directors Association to become the National Negro Funeral Directors Association. The current name was adopted in 1957.
Environmental Working Group addresses environmental justice issues which are fundamentally racial justice issues in the United States with their 17 Principles of Environmental Justice. Read this article The Environmental Movement Need to Reckon with Its Racist History by Julian Brave NoiseCat, VICE, September 13, 2019.
National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, Inc., has been active in several iterations since 1926, when it was named the Progressive National Funeral Directors Association, later merging with the National Colored Undertakers Association and the independent National Funeral Directors Association to become the National Negro Funeral Directors Association. The current name was adopted in 1957.
Environmental Working Group addresses environmental justice issues which are fundamentally racial justice issues in the United States with their 17 Principles of Environmental Justice. Read this article The Environmental Movement Need to Reckon with Its Racist History by Julian Brave NoiseCat, VICE, September 13, 2019.
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