To Serve the Living

Front Cover
Harvard University Press, Jun 1, 2010 - Social Science - 288 pages
For African Americans, death was never simply the end of life, and funerals were not just places to mourn. In the "hush harbors" of the slave quarters, African Americans first used funerals to bury their dead and to plan a path to freedom. Similarly, throughout the long - and often violent - struggle for racial equality in the twentieth century, funeral directors aided the cause by honoring the dead while supporting the living. To Serve the Living offers a fascinating history of how African American funeral directors have been integral to the fight for freedom.
 

Contents

An Undertaker Like Him
1
1 From Hush Harbors to Funeral Parlors
15
2 The Colored Embalmer
46
3 My Mans an Undertaker
79
4 A Funeral Hall Is as Good a Place as Any
112
5 The African American Way of Death
156
She Has Gone Home
194
Notes
211
Acknowledgments
245
Index
251
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