- This is black history,
like there's so much of who's who of black America. - But people don't visit here. - No, they don't visit here because they don't know the history. - On a rainy day... Note to self, stop scheduling on location outdoor shoots on rainy days. I met up with Dr. Kami Fletcher, the president of the Collective
for Radical Death Studies, and historian of American
and African-American history. We were here to visit Baltimore's historic Mount Auburn Cemetery, the
subject of her research. The restoration of the cemetery, in just a little over 10
years she's been coming here, has been significant. - Oh, my goodness Caitlin. It was just completely overgrown. But this is amazing. You know, I can see all the way back to the church, which is Sharp Street, the first 13 families
started Mount Winans Church, like this wasn't cleared out. That you can see this far,
like they have really, over the past decade, made
a serious concerted effort, and it's gotta be with the city and stuff. - Mount Auburn is the
oldest owned and operated black burial ground in Baltimore, owned and operated. Those words are important, and will likely provide the answer to the question posed by this video, which is why are black cemeteries and black funeral homes
still so often separate in the United States? We're looking not just at the history of black cemeteries and funeral homes, but how these places
created the foundation of black independence,
black wealth building, and civil rights in America. (light music) During slavery, black people
almost never had access to being properly buried
or properly mourned. That's why the very first
independent black cemeteries were such a revolution. It was access to not just a burial, but a headstone that
states here lies a person, a name, someone with family and history. - This is where black
folks filled out their genealogical tree, right here. You know, before the Civil
War, you were somebody's slave or you know, wench, or a number. You were only a piece of property when you look at these records, but in the burial ground, you can see somebody's name, approximate age, husband of, mother of, and the grouping, you know, these literal family groupings, like oh, you know, this must be the son or the daughter, so you know, black people used death to claim humanity. Where were you going to be buried unless you were just
on the side of the road or you know, the side
of some body of water, but here you could be buried in dignity. So important to be properly
buried for black folks. - You saw the same thing
happening with funeral homes that you saw with cemeteries. Understand that after the Civil War, white funeral homes would
take black families, because at the end of the day they were a business
that wanted the money, but the families and their dead loved ones were treated as second, third, fourth class citizens. The bodies were rolled through
the back basement door. The funeral was shameful,
and the white funeral home was not proud or honored to be helping, and so black people found themselves in a situation where they needed to open their own funeral homes, they
needed economic independence, but of course, the economy at the time wasn't welcoming to black
entrepreneurship and business. Becoming a funeral director
was one of the very few careers that presented this opportunity. - And that's the thing about
when you look at undertakers, black undertakers in the
reconstruction period, you know, this was their
way to go from agrarian and be a part of the cash economy, and Jim Crow insulated that in a very weird way because white people did not want black bodies. Black people were not
gonna go to white people. It's cultural. I mean, and even right now,
I mean right now, Caitlin, in 2020, somebody black
dies, I'm not going, knowingly, going to go
to a white undertaker. They can't do our hair, they don't understand the skin tone, and there's this idea that we want to look like ourselves in death because so much of our
life is stereotyped. You know, even now, some black person dies and they pull up some
mugshot or something. We can never have humanity, but that black undertaker's
gonna give us humanity. - How hard black people had
to fight for that humanity only amplified the
importance of the funeral, and the lengths that people would go to to see that things were properly done, that a person was cared for and mourned. If you've ever attended a black funeral or even seen a black funeral
on TV or in the media, you can probably pick up
on some of the differences between that funeral and what
we see more often in media, which is the stereotypical WASPy funeral, full of stoic mourners. (somber music) A perfect example of this black funeral would be Aretha Franklin's six-hour long televised funeral event. At a glance, there was nothing
subtle about this funeral, long processions, music,
singing, crying out, flowers everywhere, rejoicing. Franklin wore a different elegant outfit for each of her three viewings. Linda Swanson of Swanson
Funeral Home in Detroit, the funeral home that handled
Franklin's service said, "She is presented in a
way that reflects her life "and her legacy. "She is, indeed, resplendent in repose "as a queen should be." For Queen Aretha, no expense was spared, and emotions ran high, but this goes against the more mainstream cultural portrayals of
funerals as white funerals. This leads to assumptions
about the way we mourn, that a proper funeral
involves a stiff upper lip, a sorrowful dirge, and a solemn silence, a funeral that's over
as quickly as possible, and we don't look back. Yes, we talk about the
diversity of funeral traditions here on this channel, but I would argue that for most Americans, their
stereotypical understanding of a funeral involves a bunch
of people in black suits trying not to cry. There can be people of
different races at that funeral, in black suits, trying not to cry, but the funeral itself is still coded as a default American white funeral. That's why it's so easy,
through either racism or misunderstanding, to dismiss
the black funeral tradition. Funerals like Aretha Franklin's are rooted in the funeral rituals brought to America by enslaved Africans,
largely West Africans in the 17th century. A West African funeral started with the offering of libations, followed by a group of women washing the corpse. Sometimes the corpse
would even be embalmed. The embalming was
practical, not spiritual. African and African-American funerals were not short affairs,
so the body needed to stay in as good a shape as possible for what could be days or weeks. High rates of embalming
in the black community continue to this day for this reason. - It takes awhile for that to happen because everybody that knew this person, that can piece up on something, is coming. If you die Tuesday, that
funeral might be on Saturday, but if you die Wednesday, that funeral's not gonna be on Saturday. It's definitely gonna be
the next Saturday, period. - The body was then dressed
in their best clothing and laid out for the public bewailment, the absolute best term, which means an outpouring of crying, lamentation, and wailing. This was the height of the funeral ritual. Mourners, accompanied by drumming, processed to the burial site, where they would dance around
the grave in a ring shout. A few weeks, even a year later, the grave site would be visited again, for what was called a second burial, and this time there would
be a sense of celebration. This second burial freed the
dead from their confinement and sent them on to the world of spirits. The dead could now leave the
place where they suffered and were enslaved, and could
go home to God and Africa, hence the term home going,
used in black funerals. So while you may see spectacle when you look at black funerals, that spectacle has not only
deep spiritual meaning, but deep cultural meaning, an attempt to reclaim what was lost. At its core, the black funeral is about the confirmation of the person, the very same respect that
history has given other cultures. Archeology, anthropology.
- Absolutely. - It's like it's here they
were, here are their bodies. Here's what they used, here's
how they were ritualized. That shows their values.
- Yeah. - It shows their whole
system, and if you're enslaved you're not allowed to
display your values in death. And through a cemetery like this, you are. - So true.
- All of a sudden. - So true, yeah, and there were enslaved and free people here. Just like with the church,
there were enslaved and free people, and
this was about freedom, freedom in death. Only in a type of white
supremacist society could you get freedom through death. - At this point, it was
getting very cold and very damp at Mount Auburn, and while
I could have spent hours in the cemetery walking
through the graves, and let's be honest, deer watching... (light upbeat music) My thin West Coast skin
just wouldn't let me, so Dr. Fletcher and I got into her car and went back to her home to
continue our conversation. I wanted to pick up on something
she had mentioned earlier about the ways that black
funerals came to represent a certain kind of
finally available access. - Once the economy opened up,
and black people got access to material culture,
oh, we're going all out. I'm gonna have my horses,
I'm gonna have my casket, I'm gonna have my flowers. - So my question was, I'm
always talking about ways that capitalism has negatively
impacted the funeral industry, but at the same time, when
you learn about the history of early American black death, capitalism was a saving grace. - Going back to the first undertakers, men and women at the
turn of the 20th century, you know these folks
were able to take part of the cash economy, and what did they do with their capital? They didn't leave the community and go off and build mega mansions. They stayed and developed the community. White undertakers didn't
want these bodies. They didn't want 'em during slavery. You know, they just did not want this. It was only until they saw
all these burial societies, these benevolent societies, and the money, this green money that was coming in, so much so, again, you know,
my research in Baltimore, you had black undertakers
taking out newspaper ads saying keep the funerals
black, the florists, the cemeteries, because
these white undertakers are now trying to just encroach in on this territory, that
they still don't want. They're still sending
you second class service, you know, in the back door type thing. - Again, these are black business people, who owned and operated
their own funeral homes. It was through those funeral homes that black people were able to achieve significant wealth and power, wealth that was independent
of white people, and that was being used for the betterment of black communities, and
black economic growth. Black funeral directors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
were very often leaders in their community, beloved
aspirational figures. They wore nice suits every day,
they had beautiful carriages and then cars, and they
kept elegant funeral homes. I wondered if this affected
how the funeral directors thought of themselves. - I don't think they saw it as an honor. I think they saw it as
this kind of self-help, like that was a big word
in the early 20th century, you know, being a race leader. You take care of the
community, and how do you take care of the community? You take care of your dead. - Of course a funeral
director needs a cemetery in which to bury their dead in, and in times of slavery or segregation, that wasn't always easy. - You saw in Mount
Auburn, these black people able to own land. It might just be this small little piece, but it's my piece of
land, and I can pass it on to my children and children's children, so you know, in that way, the cemetery made thousands of black landowners. How magical is that? - So in many ways, this
continued separation of black funeral homes and
cemeteries is positive. In the book, Black Dixie,
there's this quote about the businesses, barber
shops, beauty salons, photographers, and funeral homes, that are specifically
oriented toward black needs, and that's not a bad
thing, but as we know, separate does not always mean equal. During Jim Crow, many
cemeteries were segregated between black people and white people. A lot of times, the black
side of the cemetery was poorly maintained, and even now, there are old segregated cemeteries, where the white side of the
cemetery is well manicured, and the black side is
overgrown or in disrepair. - We all know that there
were Jim Crow cemeteries. I mean, I'm talking public cemeteries with public city dollars,
that said here's for the white people, as if white people are-- Do dead people have a race, right? I mean, do you, I don't
know, but they were serious about it, so much so that
they put it in the charters. You cannot have black blood, you cannot have African ancestry, and the list goes on and on. - And while Jim Crow has
ended, in many places its legacy endures. - Do you want to know
what my latest one was? You'll never guess. You have to guess, my
latest Jim Crow cemetery. What day?
- Oh God, was it like the 1990s?
- '94. - [Caitlyn] Ohh. - This woman was 104, this
African-American woman, and they threatened her, and
the language was you know, if you bury her, it's
gonna be two funerals. - Black death continues to
evolve into the 21st century, with its own rituals and its own language, and now, as a scholar, Dr. Fletcher is living in the middle of these changes, and can chronicle these
things as they develop. Take, for example, R.I.P. T-shirts. - When my nephew died tragically, I think three years ago this year, his sister just immediately, you know, part of her calling me up
was what's your T-shirt size? Like I got you a large, what
size should I get my nephews? And this was the first
time I had participated in this mourning ritual myself. I'd seen it, of course, had family members that participated in it, and I wanted to understand
it as a death scholar and also as someone that was
actively participating in it. Is it a custom, is it a ritual? Is it just a shirt, like
is it just mourning wear like the Victorians with locks of hair? And is it a part of this
kinda larger expressive mourning culture?
- In a culture that often tries to reduce
black lives to a stereotype, black funerals and grief
continue to be important ways that the community pushes back. There is power in defiantly
doing funerals your way, separating yourself from the mainstream, even if white culture
doesn't understand it. Death has been called the great equalizer, but for a lot of people,
it continues to be the great divider.
- You know, how can we integrate in life if we
can't integrate in death? - Thank you to Dr. Fletcher. The Order has now made two
donations to her organization, The Collective for Radical Death Studies because we believe that their goal of decolonizing academia and
scholarship around death is a crucial one. This video was made
with generous donations from death enthusiasts just like you. (soft music) - I mean, Caitlin, like somewhere in D.C., and I cannot track it
down, so people out there, if you know the name of the cemetery, they had a segregated pet cemetery. - What does that mean? - If you are a white pet owner, your pet went to this cemetery. I'm so serious. Newspaper articles.
- I was like dogs and cats? No.
- No, racially. - A dog owned by a white person. - So serious about this. So very serious about this.
- Black person's Chihuahua here, white person's Golden Retriever here.
- Very serious about this. So I mean, it's rooted in something. If we cannot integrate pet cemeteries, where are we as a people? (laughing) (soft music)
This was an excellent video.