Director's Insight Summer 2019

Historic www.directorsinsightmag.com black-owned funeral Director’s insight homes face a reckoning MAGAZINE Summer 2019 Local mainstays are going under, sell- John ing out to conglomerates as death care Singleton industry tightens. Page 8 Singleton is the latest in a line of famous black men whose deaths put a spotlight Nipsey on men’s health. Hussle, Rapper and Page 4 Activist, Is Shot Dead in Los Angeles Los Angeles remembers Nipsey Hussle Page 29 Female morticians are on the rise in the U.S. Jasminne Navarre’s great-grandfather founded Rhodes Funeral Home in 1884, and the mortuary has since been a family and New Orleans institution. Page 14

2 Director’s Insight 04 08 tables of 13 content 14 Remembering John Singleton African American-owned funeral home Historic black-owned funeral opens in Worcester homes face a reckoning 18 Nashville Native offers affordable 22 cremation services. 24 Female morticians are on the rise 29 in the U.S. Searching for Eugene Williams His killing catalyzed Chicago’s 1919 race riot, but little The Chicago Defender, Legend- 32else is known about the teenager’s life on the South Side. ary Black Newspaper, Prints 33 Last Copy the HIDDEN HISTORY OF AFRICAN- AMERICAN BURIAL SITES IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH Nipsey Hussle, Rapper and Activist, Is Shot Dead in Los Angeles randy corbin, funeral home owner, dies notable deaths of 2019

3 WRONGFUL DEATHS – 18 WHEELER ACCIDENTS – PERSONAL INJURIES 1 (800) 498-KELLEY (5355) - WWW.YOUC ANC ALLUS.COM

4 Director’s Insight A hearse carrying the casket of film director John Singleton leaves the Angelus Funeral Home on May 6, 2019, after a memorial service in Los Angeles. Singleton died April 29 after a stroke. (Chris Pizzello/AP) FEATURE John Singleton’s death is another warning sign for black men. It’s time we listen. By Courtland Milloy

5 Five months into a plant- In a statement released by his based whole-foods diet, I family, Singleton was said to continue to experience the have “struggled quietly with benefits. Weight, choles- hypertension,” a medical term for terol, blood pressure — all down. extremely high blood pressure. Energy Up. They urged black people to carry on the struggle by monitoring their I’m glad I made the change. blood pressure and learning to recognize the signs of hypertension. Diet-related diseases are Singleton was 51, an Oscar crippling and killing black men nominee for best director with his movie, “Boyz N the Hood,” and at disproportionately high rates. the father of seven with an estate estimated at $30 million. Now, Just last week, African American because of his celebrity, he has become the latest public face in the filmmaker John Singleton died after war on racial disparities in health, a martyr in the black man’s fight suffering a stroke. He also had high against hypertension. blood pressure. But we don’t need martyrs. We Few life-threatening conditions are more easily treated than high blood pressure. Eat plants instead of animal flesh, exercise and meditate — you’ll see improvements within days. need fathers, husbands, brothers, sons. Singleton is the latest in a line of famous black men whose deaths put a spotlight on men’s health. Remember Prince? He died in 2016, at 57, from an accidental overdose of fentanyl. He was also taking clonidine, which is used to treat high blood pressure, and what he thought was Valium, which is used to treat anxiety. But the medicine alone didn’t work as well as he’d hoped. Ray Roberts, Prince’s chef, told police that he tried to serve Prince healthy vegan meals, but the singer wouldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep. According to a police report, “Roberts stated Prince’s health issue was related to stress from his work.” Did his death make anybody change their diet, get more exercise, more rest? A study by researchers at

6 Director’s Insight Northwestern University suggests Jackson was the martyr, dead in not: In 1999, black men had a 16 2009 from an overdose of propofol percent higher rate of death from in combination with sedatives. He heart failure than white men. By was 50, with an estate estimated at 2017, that rate was 43 percent $236 million. Propofol is a powerful higher. The rates in black women anesthetic used to knock you out were 35 percent and 54 percent before surgery. “The majority of higher in the same time periods, cases of propofol abuse involve use respectively. of the drug for recreational purposes and stress relief,” according to Hypertension is a driving force an analysis of the Jackson case behind heart failure and stroke — published in the October 2011 two of the leading causes of death issue of the Journal of Forensic in the United States. Research. Did his death make any consume fewer drugs, less alcohol? As noted on the website, Heart. org, which is associated with the Isaac Hayes, memorable for American Heart Association: “The composing the soundtrack to the prevalence of high blood pressure movie “Shaft,” died in 2008. He in African Americans in the United was 65. Like Singleton, he had high States is among the highest in the blood pressure and died of a stroke. world.” That’s a lot of heart attacks Hayes would boast about how much and strokes. Before Prince, Michael he loved “soul food,” the saltier and John Singleton, seen in Los Ange- les in July 1991, not long after the release of Boyz n the Hood. The movie earned the young filmmaker two Oscar nominations. Bob Gal- braith / AP

7 greasier the better. echoes what doctors have been Los Angeles, California trying to tell us for years. Measure John Singleton’s closest friends and Did his death make anybody swear your blood pressure and learn to loved ones arrived at his private off fried chicken, ribs, chitterlings? spot the signs of hypertension. But funeral to pay their final respects. why wait until the “silent killer” is As pop icon Barry White ballooned knocking at your door? up to 375 pounds, his health worsened with every new ounce Better to keep it out of the ‘hood, of fat. He died in 2003 at 58, after as Singleton might say, away from having a stroke, kidney failure and yourself and your loved ones. Eat hypertension. right, exercise, meditate, get a pet, take a break, encourage your Did his death make anybody join a friends to do the same. gym? Some may find it difficult to make All of these deaths are tragic losses. such changes. But it’s a lot less And each year, thousands more painful than becoming a martyr. less-famous black men succumb to diseases that could have been prevented. The Singleton family’s advice for treating hypertension is solid and

8 Director’s Insight Historic black-owned funeral homes face a reckoning Local mainstays are going under, selling out to conglomerates as death care industry tightens

9 By Ileana Najarro When Carolyn Hox- ie’s mother died, Edward Loche was among the first to know. He has buried several of Hoxie’s relatives over the years. Though Hoxie’s family moved out of Fifth Ward, they always sought the services of Ross Mortuary. “We had to come back,” Hoxie told Loche as they reviewed her mother’s death certificate. For more than 35 years Loche has been part of a tradition of black funeral directors in the United States that offer a trusted service to generations of African-American families seeking dignity for their

10 Director’s Insight deceased loved ones. As Hoxie moved to place the bag “Oh no, let’s get a hug,” he said with Loche’s two children work for him, on Loche’s desk, Barrett stepped a chuckle. “We don’t do that here.” and now his grandchildren take part forward. The two women shared a in the family business from time silent smile as Hoxie gently placed to time. But as family-owned black the items in Barrett’s cupped hands. funeral homes go under, or sell out When Hoxie then turned to give to mortuary conglomerates, Loche’s Loche a handshake, he shook his story, the tradition of a family unit head. caring for their community’s dead, is becoming a rarity. When Hoxie finished signing the required paperwork in Loche’s office, she unfurled a plastic bag. It contained a few of her mother’s accessories, including a tube of lipstick she wanted to show him and his daughter, Edwina Loche Barrett. “Gotta have that lipstick color,” Hoxie said, “that’s her favorite color.”

11 Loche’s business, Ross Mortuary, has been overseeing end-of-life care at 3618 Lyons Ave. in Houston’s Fifth Ward since 1938. It was a time when segregation prohibited African-American families from seeking funeral services at white-owned institutions. “[Black funeral homes] came about because someone had to bury our people,” said Patricia Prather, a historian who grew up in Fifth Ward. Black funeral directors, like black doctors and teachers, became respected community leaders across the segregated United States. They served on city councils. They participated in community fundraising. They attended Sunday service with their neighbors. During the Civil Rights Movement, community meetings were held in black funeral parlors and funeral directors oversaw transportation for civil rights leaders, said Carol Williams, executive director of the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, the nation’s largest African-American deathcare trade group. “They would transport Martin Luther King in hearses to keep him safe,” she said. As integration led to an exodus of black families from areas like Houston’s Fifth and Third Wards, churches and funeral homes remained in place, Prather said. They didn’t have to leave. Families that moved out always came home. Generations of families ended up using the same funeral parlor. Families sought the professionalism these institutions offered for homegoing celebrations. It’s a tradition that dates back to the time of slavery when slaves who wanted to return to Africa felt the only way they could was in death, their passing granting them freedom from bondage, Williams said. This ideology later changed to the notion of going home to heaven after death. Regardless of what home meant, the lively, celebratory nature of the service remained, one that wasn’t offered by white funeral homes. Yet the heyday for independent black funeral homes has come and gone. Leaders of the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association worry about communities losing a trusted neighbor when independents disappear. They know these funeral homes often double as bail bond lenders in heavily policed communities and they know corporate prices for funerals can be hard for community members to afford. “Funeral homes, just like the barbershops, work to keep money in our communities,” Williams, the trade group’s executive director said. In an effort to keep up interest in the next generation, Bill offers internships at his Third Ward funeral home to get younger workers through the door, offering a first look at the trade the way his hometown funeral director did. The trade group will host its 40 & Under Funeral Directors Leadership & Enrichment Summit in Dallas Feb. 10-12 as a way to improve outreach among younger members. At Ross Mortuary, Loche’s daughter has been bringing her three children to the funeral home since they were infants. Her 7-year-old talks of one day running grandpa’s business. Her bilingual 14-year-old already helps out as a translator for Spanish-speaking clients. Though she has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education, and worked at schools for six years, when Barrett’s parents called asking her to come work at the funeral home, the answer was obvious. “It’s a legacy that I couldn’t let go,” she said. In 2018 alone Ross Mortuary served more than 400 families. It offered Barrett, her brother and her parents more than 400 chances to make a difference. At Houston Memorial Gardens Cemetery, with the midday October sun high in the sky, Ross Mortuary employee Yolanda Douglas guided Carolyn Hoxie over to the tent covering her mother’s casket. While other workers were busy directing relatives to the repast, Douglas stood at the casket’s edge as the pastor gave his final blessings. Before the immediate family got up to leave, Douglas let them all know they were free to take some of the flowers decorating the casket. Douglas herself picked out a handful of white lilies and yellow roses to fashion into a small bouquet which she placed into Hoxie’s trembling hands. Loche was unable to attend the service. He was busy making preparations for the next family in need.

12 Director’s Insight I T ’ S A LWAY S P E R S O N A L .THE KELLEY LAW FIRM IT’S NEVER JUST BUSINESS WRONGFUL DEATHS – 18 WHEELER ACCIDENTS – PERSONAL INJURIES WE ARE A NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED LAW FIRM THAT PROTECTS FAMILIES. COMPRISED OF INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE COME TOGETHER FOR ONE PURPOSE, WE ENSURE THAT FAMILIES WHO HAVE SUFFERED A LOSS AT THE FAULT OF OTHERS ARE CARED FOR AND PROPERLY REPRESENTED.  OUR JOB IS TO GIVE FAMILIES JUSTICE, AND THAT IS A JOB WE DO WELL.

Nashville 13 Native Offers a 50-mile radius. He also doesn’t charge families to . Affordable bury children under two years old— all the family pays for is the casket, which is $197. One way to lessen the financial burden is to get pre-need life insur- Cremation ance to help pay the cost of ser- vices, Ganaway advised. It’s also important to tell loved ones about purchasing the insurance, noting he has decades-old records with un- By Ashley Benkarski claimed money from life insurance accounts that pre-date his purchase of the business. He says part of that comes from folks not wanting to NASHVILLE, TN — SAG rise in demand for cremation has talk about death. Funeral Home owner caused an increase in prices, mak- Steve Ganaway is a ing it harder for people to afford. “I have learned in this line of work that death is a part of life,” Ganaway said. man dedicated to giving back to his community. He grew up Seeing this need, Ganaway made on Arthur St. in North Nashville in the move to offer a simple crema- a little enclave of houses and small tion (minus the ceremony) for about businesses. As a kid, he says, he’d $700. It covers the service of the SAG Funeral Home owner Steve help neighbors carry groceries and funeral director and staff, cremation Ganaway is a man dedicated to mow lawns, never asking for money fee, box and temporary urn. Also houses and small businesses. but not turning it down when it was included is the transfer of the loved raised that way. offered. He was raised that way. one’s remains to a mortuary within Now, he owns the funeral home at the corner of Buchanan and 16th Ave., the same bit of land he’d mow as a boy. Formerly McGavok and Martin Brothers Funeral Home, his is the only black-owned cremato- ry in Tennessee, he says, and he bought the funeral home to help low-income folks in his neighbor- hood. The death of a loved one can be quite expensive—thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on client request—and oftentimes the people Ganaway serves don’t have the money on hand to bury them. He says cremation is becom- ing a common alternative to burial, especially among younger folks, due to its lower cost. However, the

14 Director’s Insight By Ryan Whirty Female morticians are on the rise in the U.S. Jasminne Navarre’s great-grandfather founded Rhodes Funeral Home in 1884, and the mortuary has since been a family and New Orleans institution. One day as a youth, Navarre visited the family business to wait for a ride, and during a busy period, she was tasked with delivering an urgent message to the mortuary director.

15 It was a seemingly random incident that would impact the rest of Navarre’s life. “The lady answering the phone couldn’t leave her post, and I made myself available,” Navarre said of her errand. “I started as a message runner as a teen, and slowly found myself assisting in other areas as needed.” Her career as a mortician blossomed from there. She went on to graduate from Clark Atlanta University and earn a teaching certificate as well. She then completed mortuary school at Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland in 2005 and served an internship in the field while also becoming nationally certified by the Society of Human Resource Managers. “All of these together has allowed me to craft a career that allows me to service funeral customers, funeral industry students, career professionals working to mold the career that best suits their skills within the industry,” she said. With that extensive education in hand, Navarre has spent more than 14 years as a funeral director and human resources manager in a field and a family business that she has grown to love. She’s also a part of a significant shift in the funeral director industry. Navarre and their fellow veterans of the in- dustry are being joined by more and more women who decide to become morticians and funeral directors. Accord- ing to a recent article by National Newspaper Publishers Association reporter Stacy M. Brown, members of the mortuary business have noticed a significant uptick of women as funeral directors, embalmers and morticians. The increase has been noted by others both inside and outside of the industry, including the Associated Press, which last November reported that nearly 65 percent of funeral director programs at universities were women in 2017. In 2015, Fortune magazine stated that Houston-based Service Corporation International, the largest mortuary company in the country, features an employee roster of about 23,000, with roughly half being women. According to 2016 U.S. Census data, roughly 28 percent of the counted 34,129 morticians, undertakers and funeral directors in the country are women. Data from the Census Bureau’s 2016 American Community Survey also showed that women funeral service managers actually earn more on average than their male colleagues, $61,597 to $60,487. Evidence also suggests that women will continue to be the wave of the future when it comes to funeral services – Census stats show that women on average were 42.7 years old, while the men were 51.1 years old on average, showing that the women are younger and ready to spend more years in the field. (According to those same Census surveys, less than 10 percent of people employed as morticians, undertakers and funeral directors are African American – just 3,644, or 9.9 percent of workers in the field.) Another example of a woman’s experience in the field is when Kim W. Michel started out in the mortuary busi- ness, and faced a challenging road. As a woman in what has traditionally been a men’s field for 25 years, Michel found the going tough at times. “It was very difficult,” said Michel, the executive director of the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors in Metairie. “It wasn’t the education [that was hard], it was because it was so male-dominated.” When she started out, Michel wasn’t planning on entering the mortuary business, but the death of a loved one steered her toward the field, and after a quarter-century of practicing her chosen profession, she’s glad she made the decision. “I wouldn’t change my career,” she said. “It’s a very rewarding job. It takes a certain type of person to be success- ful. Not everyone can do it.” Jan Smith, a spokeswoman for the National Funeral Directors Association, said she’s seen the result of those

16 Director’s Insight trends, which she said are extremely positive for the industry and for the individual women who decide to enter the field. Smith, who also serves as vice president of operations for Flanner Buchanan, an Indianapolis- based funeral direction business that dates back about 150 years, said that when she became a licensed funeral director more than 20 years ago, she was somewhat of an oddity. Now, she said, mortuary businesses are more open to hiring female morticians, embalmers and funeral directors. She said women can offer a particular adeptness as funeral directors, with a keenly attuned sense of empathy and compassion that appeals to and comforts grieving loved ones. In addition, Smith said, women are frequently able to attend to and manage all the small but extremely important functions and responsibilities that go into a powerful, compassionate and smooth funeral service that memorializes the recently deceased. “Women can have a high level of energy, and they’re able to juggle a lot of details, which is extremely important,” she said. According to 2016 U.S. Census data, roughly 28 percent of the counted 34,129 morticians, undertakers and funeral directors in the country are women.

17 “The lady answering the phone couldn’t leave her post, and I made myself available,” Navarre said of her errand. “I started as a message runner as a teen, and slowly found myself assisting in other areas as needed.” Her career as a mortician blossomed from there. She went on to graduate from Clark Atlanta University and earn a teaching certificate as well. She then completed mortuary school at Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland in 2005 and served an internship in the field while also becoming nationally certified by the Society of Human Resource Managers. Smith added that while men can certainly embody such key traits as compassion and organizational ability as well, women often possess the perfect blend of all the skills needed to be an excellent funeral director and mortician. “It’s created a great mix of skill and perspective,” Smith said of women’s experiences in the business. “Women can be comforting and form a bond [with loved ones], and they can be great communicators when working with a family.” Navarre said one of the reasons for a historical dearth of female funeral directors has been the very nature of the business itself – and the image that’s traditionally been presented. “The industry is seen [as male-dominated] because the image previously used to portray and or marketing of our field has been cold and stiff,” she said. “I think it might have also been left this way to mark the seriousness of the work, and a separation of the community who delivers the care we provide.” Navarre echoed Smith’s sentiments regarding the benefits that women’s perspectives on life, love and grief can have at a mortuary. “Women are overcoming these images and through the experience families have when serviced by professionals that look a bit different than the tradition but deliver high quality services that often exceed expectations,” she said. “I would never diminish the work of my male colleagues,” she added. “We have worked together side by side and taken care of many families, so the addition of more women has only softened the cold presence that once hung over the image of the field. The sex of the professional doesn’t determine the level of care but does indeed diversify the experience.” Smith said she expects the trend to continue, and Michel of the Louisiana state board agrees. A licensed embalmer for more than 25 years, Michel said that while she couldn’t comment on any national trends, she has definitely seen an increase in the number of female funeral directors, morticians and embalmers in Louisiana. She said that many women who enter the mortuary field do so as part of a family funeral-direction business, pass- ing on a multi-generational legacy in their companies. However, Michel said that more and more, the women who become morticians and embalmers are like herself – once-novices who are nonetheless attracted to a field in which empathy and efficiency are required to succeed. Navarre – who’s also taught in local funeral-service education programs, in addition to her duties at Rhodes – said that while she has given much to her chosen field, she’s also found herself enriched by her profession, especially on a day-to-day level, and her work both poses challenges and provides personal satisfaction. She cites helping loved ones prioritize the essentials of disposition and management as one of the biggest chal- lenges, while she feels most rewarded when she’s able to give grieving families peace of mind and emotional and spiritual closure. “No two days are alike,” she said. “Each case is unique, and each family requires services tailored to the individual we are servicing. The best way to describe death care in my opinion is never a dull moment, always an opportunity to observe human behavior and interactions and learn the value of life.”

18 Director’s Insight Searching for Eugene Williams

19 Who was Eugene Williams? The black somebody, / because I saw the whites of his eyes / teenager’s death sparked Chicago’s before he let go of the railroad tie. / So I spoke it, his 1919 race riot, but few facts are name came out of me, / and I fired.” known about Williams himself. He died in the waters of Lake Michigan on the afternoon It isn’t known whether the real-life James Crawford of July 27, 1919, after a white man threw rocks at witnessed Williams’s death. But he reportedly did fire him — a tragedy that spiraled into a spate of violence a gun at police later that day. A cop killed Crawford — lasting several days, with 38 people dead. the second death of the riot. At the time, when newspapers reported on the As the poem’s narrator says, Eugene Williams was riot, they mentioned Eugene Williams’s name, but somebody. And as I was researching my recent nothing about his story, his parents, how his death Chicago magazine article chronicling the race riot, I changed their lives. As far as I can tell, after search- found a few more details about him. ing through microfilmed and digitized newspapers, the press didn’t bother to answer those questions. During my reporting, I contacted William M. Tuttle Jr., the author of the 1970 book Race Riot: Chicago in the This was typical of journalism in the early 20th Red Summer of 1919. Now 81, he’s a University of century. For one thing, few newspapers reported in Kansas professor emeritus. depth about the lives of black Chicagoans. But even the Chicago Defender, a nationally prominent black Tuttle agreed to mail me the transcripts of some newspaper, said very little about Williams. Further- interviews he’d conducted in the late 1960s for his more, newspapers rarely told detailed stories about book. Among them was a conversation with John anyone’s lives. Turner Harris, a friend of Eugene’s who’d been there on the day he died. The Defender (whose historic issues are searchable with a Chicago Public Library card) did publish a In them, Tuttle asked Harris, “Can you tell me much picture of Eugene Williams (shown above at right) about Eugene Williams, what kind of guy he was?” on August 30, 1919, a little more than a month after his death. A smiling young man in formal clothing Harris responded: “He was just a regular kid like us — is dimly visible on the microfilm and digital scans. just a regular kid … He had just graduated from school Whether it’s a graduation picture, a family portrait, or … He was a pretty smart boy. That’s all I know. As I something different, I don’t know. say, we met him and we liked him.” The short text below the picture noted that Williams Harris noted that Eugene lived in a different had lived at 3921 South Prairie Avenue, the same neighborhood than he did, so he might not have known address that the Defender mentioned in its first re- him all that well. It isn’t clear where Eugene attended port about his death. That’s one of the only scraps of school. Had he been a recent high school graduate, information published about Williams at the time. which we don’t know, it’s likely he would have attended “Little is known of his parents or his early life,” ac- Wendell Phillips High School, just one block north of cording to the African American National Biography. that address on Prairie Avenue. Nevertheless, Williams was considered important enough to merit a short biographical entry in that One puzzling clue: According to Harris, Eugene 2006 reference collection. attended a school that was later turned into “a health center.” Tuttle told me he thinks Harris was alluding to In 1919, Eve L. Ewing’s new book of poems about Michael Reese Hospital, but I haven’t found anything the riot, she imagines a black man named James about a school that became part of the hospital’s Crawford witnessing Eugene Williams’s drowning. campus. Crawford sees Williams clinging to a railroad tie in the water. He muses that no one would be saying Author Claire Hartfield’s 2018 book A Few Red Eugene’s name if he hadn’t drowned. “… but he was Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 includes a

20 Director’s Insight reproduction of Eugene Williams’s death certificate In its verdict concluding that Eugene Williams had from the Cook County clerk’s office. drowned, the coroner’s jury described him as “a Here’s what we know about Williams from that peaceable citizen in bathing suit.” But what about document: He worked as a porter at a grocery store. those thousands of pages of testimony? He was born on March 10, 1902, in Georgia. His father, John W. Williams, was born in South Carolina. Rachel Dailey, the administrative assistant in Toni “Unknown” is written in the space for “Maiden Name Preckwinkle’s office who handled my FOIA request, of Mother,” but the document does say Eugene’s told me via email: “After an extensive search we have mother was born in Georgia. Other records show that not located any additional records responsive to your her first name was Luella. request. We will continue to search for records and contact you if and when they are located.” TThe death certificate also says that Eugene was buried at Lincoln Cemetery on August 5, 1919, nine Five months later, I asked if any additional documents days after his death. The undertaker was Charles S. had turned up. “No luck finding anything else,” she Jackson of 3317 South State Street, a black Pitts- replied. burgh native who was well regarded in the African American community. (After 145 years in business, The coroner’s jury described Williams as “an becoming America’s longest-running black-owned athlete and expert swimmer.” Did someone testify funeral home, the Charles S. Jackson Funeral Home’s to the jury about Eugene’s athletic prowess? In his final South Side location closed in 2012.) interview, Harris said: “None of us were accomplished swimmers, but we could dive underwater and come During his interview, Harris recalled his friend’s up. We would push the raft and swim, kick, dive, and funeral, explaining why he never told investigators play around. As long as the raft was there, we were about the drowning he’d witnessed. He was afraid, he safe.” said, that his mother would get angry if she found out he’d disobeyed her by going swimming. The story Harris told about that raft offers another glimpse of what Eugene Williams was like. “We made “I’ve never told it to the police or anything,” Harris a little raft, we worked on that a long time,” Harris said. told Tuttle. “We were forbidden to go swimming on “About four different groups of about 20 boys worked Sunday, and I was more afraid of my mother than on this raft for about two months. It was a nice size anyone. They would look for us and ask who the boys — it was about 14 by 9 feet. Oh, it was a tremendous were with him. We went to the funeral, and the moth- thing.” er knew me. And when I talked to her at the funeral, I told her how it happened.” This was possibly a typical hobby of teenagers of that era. I’ve read stories about white Chicagoans on Harris believed that Luella Williams later conveyed the North Side doing the same thing in the late 19th his story to the authorities. But it’s unknown exact- century. In 1891, a city official complained about boys ly who testified when Cook County coroner Peter constructing ramshackle rafts with scraps of lumber Hoffman held an inquest to determine the cause of and using them to float in the flooded holes left behind Eugene’s death. Many documents about the race riot when brick makers scooped clay out of the ground. This are missing — including 5,584 pages of testimony was especially a problem in Lake View. “The small boy that witnesses gave at coroner’s inquests for the 38 delights in tormenting his mother by exemplifying the homicides. illustrations in his ‘Robinson Crusoe,’” wrote Walter V. Hayt, the general sanitary officer in the city’s I filed a Freedom of Information Act request in No- Department of Health. “He constructs rafts of odds vember 2018 with Cook County, asking for any sur- and ends of lumber, and boldly sets out from shore. As viving documents connected with those deaths. Five a general rule he comes home drowned before night, days later, they’d found coroner’s jury verdict forms on a stretcher manned by two burly policemen.” for 35 of the 38 homicides. (These verdicts were also published in a report you can see at the Chicago History Museum.)

21 The death certificate also says that Eugene was buried at Lincoln Cem- etery on August 5, 1919, nine days after his death. It’s likely that Eugene and his friends were just looking for ways to spend their free time. They knew that white people used the 29th Street beach, while black people used a section of beach farther north, near 25th Street.

22 Director’s Insight The Chicago Defender, Legendary Black Newspaper, Prints Last Copy

23 Decade by decade, the newspaper told the story of black life in America. It took note of births and deaths, of graduations and weddings, of everything in between. Through eras of angst, its reporters dug into painful, dangerous stories, relaying grim details of lynchings, of clashes over school integration and of the shootings of black men by white police officers. Among a long list of distinguished bylines: Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks. After more than a century, The Chicago Defender will cease its print editions after Wednesday, the newspaper’s owner has announced. The Defender will continue its digital operation, according to Hiram E. Jackson, chief exec- utive of Real Times Media, which owns The Defender and other black newspapers around the country. He said the move would allow the news organization to adapt to a fast-changing, highly challenging media environment that has upended the entire newspaper industry. “It is an economic decision,” Mr. Jackson said, “but it’s more an effort to make sure that The Defender has another 100 years.” Still, the demise of The Chicago Defender’s print editions represented a painful passage for many people who grew up in Chicago and for those with memories of its influence far beyond this city. Of its many significant effects over many years, The Defender told of economic success in the North, and was seen as a catalyst in the migration of hundreds of thousands of black Americans from the South. In Chicago, it was a constant, on newsstands in African-American neighborhoods and on kitchen tables in Afri- can-American homes.

24 Director’s Insight The Defender’s front page from January 6, 1966, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited to announce plans for the Chicago Freedom Movement.CreditChicago Defender

25 “As a kid, you always knew about frame of reference for activities,” counter negative stereotypes of Af- The Defender,” said Glenn Reedus, Mr. Jackson said. “My career would rican-Americans that were perva- a former editor of the newspaper. not be what it is today if not for The sive in mainstream outlets, it was “It was at everybody’s house. It Defender.” also a very influential advocating was at the barber’s. It was every- force for black communities. It ex- where, South Side or West Side. The nation’s black press, including posed the terrors of lynching. The There was a joke that if someone The Defender, was in some ways National Newspaper Publishers said something had happened and born out of necessity, providing an Association, a trade organization someone else said it hadn’t, you outlet for black people at a time for African-American-owned news- knew it didn’t happen if it wasn’t in when there was no other platform papers, said it currently counts The Defender.” for them. The first black news- 218 such publications across 40 paper, Freedom’s Journal, was states that attract 22.2 million The Defender delivered news of created in 1827 and argued for readers between print and online monumental events — the funeral the abolition of slavery. By some each week. of Emmett Till, the death of the Rev. estimates, more than 500 black- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the elec- owned newspapers emerged in the Although the country may look dif- tion of Barack Obama — but also of three decades after the end of the ferent now, the enduring challeng- everyday life for black Americans, Civil War in 1865, according to a es of racism make the black press the Rev. Jesse Jackson said. “We report on the black press commis- just as essential now, said Benja- never saw ourselves listed oth- sioned by the Democracy Fund. min Chavis Jr., the president and er places in weddings, funerals, chief executive of the association. debutantes, so this became a real Not only did black-run media

26 Director’s Insight The Hidden History of African-American Burial Sites in the Antebellum South IN MODERN-DAY ALTAVISTA, VIRGINIA, A town that covers 5 square miles of what was the first English colony in North America, sits the Avoca Museum. The land was settled in 1755 by Colonel Charles Lynch, a politician and American Revolutionary Patriot, while the current structure was built in 1901 and is now a Virginia Historic Landmark. Beyond the stately home, whose porch and eaves are marked by flourishes derived from the British-born Queen Anne style, is a dirt clearing within a patch of aged oak trees. Upon closer look, there’s a constellation of irregularly shaped rocks placed with curious precision—some squat, some narrow. Evan Nicole Brown The history of this terra firma is largely hidden, both because of its obscured distance from the main home and the largely subterranean information it holds. This patch of land is a graveyard of the enslaved African-Americans who lived on the Lynch’s property. The rocks—which serve as headstones—reveal a se- cret yet conscious coding system that the living slave community de- signed for their deceased. And on former plantations across the coun- try, similar grave markers have been discovered over time, offering clues to what life (and death) was like for black Americans in the An- tebellum period. When discussing slavery in the United States, people are often preoccupied with how the enslaved

27 lived: What crops did they labor over? How brutally were they punished? How did they survive through their con- ditions? The truth is, a lot of them didn’t survive for long. Death was a hyper-present reality for enslaved children and adults alike, whether by illness or at the hands of their owner. And when the enslaved died in the Antebellum South, African-Americans were forced to find creative ways to honor them. This was partially due to widespread white fear that any black collective coming together could be an opportunity for the group to devise an exit strategy from the plantation. Funerals necessitate that people gather for a final goodbye, so these mortuary traditions were commonly monitored and squelched by overseers. Unsurprisingly, slaveholders didn’t bother to honor those who died–a direct reflection of the lack of respectful treatment they granted the enslaved while they were alive. Through the use of non-traditional grave markers in community run cemeteries throughout the slave holding states, often obscured as a form of protection, black Americans found a way to take ownership over the final resting places of their kin. Avoca’s Enslaved Persons Cemetery was once overgrown and easily missed. It was re-discovered in 2005 by the museum’s former director after a Lynch descendant casually mentioned the cemetery’s existence about a quarter mile from the main house. Avoca’s executive director, Michael Hudson, has been committed to re- membering and honoring the property’s deceased ever since. “We found out there were 32 burials, and 30 of them turned out to be adult-sized,” Hudson says. “And two of them are kind of small.” These burials don’t stretch back as far as the estate does, however. After having a “crisis of conscience” toward the end of his life, Colonel Lynch freed most of his enslaved people in the 18th century, citing Christianity as the main source of his empathetic epiphany. But his son, Anselm Lynch, was more firmly a product of his time. When his father died, Anselm spent his inheri- tance on scores of slaves. These are likely the bodies buried on the grounds.

28 Director’s Insight Since enlisting the help of local anthropologists and geophysicists, assisted by a grant from the Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation, Hudson and others involved in the Avoca community have discovered a pattern of “dis- turbed soil” that points, with strong evidence, to the presence of a cemetery. “They did find some stones that were anthropomorphical—that is that they had been acted on by human hands, [and] shaped with rudimentary tools,” he says. “Many of them were not in situ, they were just sort of piled up at the bottom of a tree.” Given the passage of time, it’s unsurprising that both humans and earth would shift these natural stones—which served as tombstones, though unmarked. “None of them bear an inscription,” Hudson says. On the heels of a slave rebellion in 1831, an insurrection led by the highly literate Virginia slave Nat Turner, the state’s laws changed. As a direct response to Turner’s largely successful uprising, legislation passed deeming it illegal to teach black Americans—enslaved, free, or mixed race— to read and write. The logic was that knowledge is power and could help organize future rebellions, so it must be limited. “You wouldn’t tell on yourself, so to speak, by inscribing a tombstone,” Hudson says. In order to find the exact location of the bodies beneath Avoca’s grounds, to illuminate the past for the broader Lynchburg community, a geolocation radar tool was used to detect the depth of compromised soil (unsurprisingly, usually six to seven feet under). This meant the graves didn’t have to be dug up, an option Hudson says was out of the question. Other general clues that it was a cemetery included the irregularly shaped rocks, a trend found in slave cemeteries across several states, which tended to be naturally occurring field stones like marble and granite found in the vicinity of the slave holder’s house. At Avoca, Hudson says, “Some of them are in the shape of a human eye, kind of like an oval with points on the end.” According to local African-American families, growing up they were told that the purpose of this rock shape was to symbolize that the eyes of the dead watch over the living. The delib- erate patterns in these rocks was a black mortuary tradition usually marking adult graves. Children’s graves were demarcated by a stone even more cherished; in some family circles, pink quartz indicated a child’s grave. At Avoca in particular, two quartz markers were uncovered, visibly unchanged from their natural state. “The graves we have that are covered with pink quartz, two of those graves are short. [They’re] tiny and little graves,” Hudson says. Virginia or not, cemeteries created for the formerly enslaved provide important cultural data about daily life in the 18th and 19th centuries in the slaveholding South. “Mortuary practices in almost any culture around the world are an important window into the values of the living culture,” Rainville says. From gravestone design to the broader mortuary landscape, cemeteries offer strong local history wherever they are, and serve as lasting pieces of bi- ographical information, especially from a time when the average person didn’t leave many clues surrounding their life behind. Dr. Rainville’s work, which reconstructs communities based on signs left upon death, brings history to present-day. “Gravestones can sometimes serve as silent witnesses, a physical reminder of a tragic event, that otherwise can be, as it were, whitewashed from the landscape.” In the same vein, the team at the Avoca Museum finds the resurrection of its on-site African-American cemetery important, says Hudson, because “it helps to give a voice to people who no longer have one.”

29 Nipsey Hussle, Rapper and Activist, Is Shot Dead in Los Angeles

30 Director’s Insight By Niraj Chokshi, Mihir Zaveri and Joe Coscarelli Nipsey Hussle, the shooting, one was taken to the hospital and is in stable Grammy-nominated condition while the other suffered only a graze wound, rapper, entrepreneur the police said. All three were shot in the parking lot and advocate for his na- outside The Marathon Clothing, a store that Nipsey tive South Los Angeles, was fatally Hussle opened in 2017. The authorities had not shot outside his clothing store in identified a suspect or motive as of Monday afternoon. that city’s Hyde Park neighborhood on Sunday afternoon. A Los Angeles fixture since the mid-2000s, Nipsey Hussle first drew widespread acclaim in hip-hop for Nipsey Hussle, born Ermias Joseph his three-part mixtape series, “Bullets Ain’t Got No Asghedom, was pronounced Name.” His stage name is a twist on the comedian dead just before 4 p.m. local time, Nipsey Russell. according to the Los Angeles County Coroner. “Victory Lap,” his debut album, was nominated this year for best rap album at the Grammy Awards, losing News of the 33-year-old’s death, to Cardi B’s “Invasion of Privacy.” “My whole energy in a shooting that left two others is just at a low right now hearing this,” the rapper wounded, prompted an outpouring Drake, who collaborated with Nipsey Hussle, wrote on of support from the Los Angeles Instagram. “You were a real one to your people and to community that he championed. the rest of us. I’m only doing this here cause I want the world to know I saw you as a man of respect and a don. “Our hearts are with the loved ones Rest easy my g.” of Nipsey Hussle and everyone touched by this awful tragedy,” Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, said in a tweet. “L.A. is hurt deeply each time a young life is lost to senseless gun violence.” The actress Issa Rae, who also grew up in South Los Angeles, expressed her admiration for the rapper on Twitter. “Watching Nipsey inspired me to invest and own in our communities,” Ms. Rae said. “He was a solid man who loved his woman, his family and his community. This hurts.” Of the two others wounded in the

31 Rihanna also mourned the rapper’s death on Instagram, posting photos of him with his daughter at the Grammy’s in February. “This doesn’t make any sense! My spirit is shaken by this,” she said. Nipsey Hussle had collaborated with artists including Snoop Dogg and YG, drawing from his city’s tradition of gangster rap and intricate street-level storytelling. In 2013, he created industry buzz by creating only 1,000 physical copies of his mixtape “Crenshaw,” an independent release that sold for $100 at a pop-up shop and was freely available online. He said Jay-Z bought 100 copies. “Nipsey was not only one of the greatest artists we worked with but an amazing father and leader in his community,” Nipsey Hussle’s label, Atlantic Records, said in a statement. “One of the kindest and brightest stars in the universe, he was inspiring to all.” By Monday morning, hundreds of mourners had gathered to pay their respects outside the store. Some fans prayed and cried while others laid down candles, flowers and signs to express their condolences. A steady flow of passing cars played tracks from Nipsey Hussle’s latest album. The rapper was a strong advocate for the South Los Angeles community where he was raised. In his teens, Nipsey Hussle dropped out of high school and became involved in street life as he tried to make a career in music. He identified as a member of the Rollin 60’s Crips gang, which he chalked up to history, circumstance and survival. “I’m not promoting it. I’m just speaking on it,” he said in a 2010 interview with Complex. “I’m more focused on giving solutions and inspiration more than anything.” Despite that affiliation, the rapper spoke out about gun violence and had plans to meet on Monday afternoon with representatives from Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and officials from the Los Angeles Police Department to talk about preventing gang violence, according to Steve Soboroff, the Los Angeles police commissioner. He was also an outspoken representative of the Crenshaw neighborhood and helped to promote the community’s art and culture. “From the beginning, Nipsey Hussle has been a critical part of #DestinationCrenshaw, even inspiring the name!” Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a city councilman who represents South Los Angeles, said on Instagram. “Destination Crenshaw” is a community project designed to promote black cultural history in South Los Angeles. Last year, Nipsey Hussle, who taught himself how to build computers, helped to launch a center in the Crenshaw district dedicated to connecting underrepresented groups with technology companies. “Growing up as a kid, I was looking for somebody — not to give me anything — but somebody that cared,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “Someone that was creating the potential for change and that had an agenda outside of their own self interests.” Nipsey Hussle was in a relationship with the actress and model Lauren London, with whom he had a son, Kross. He also had a daughter, Emani, from a previous relationship. Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Los Angeles County supervisor who represents South Los Angeles, said Nipsey Hussle “was a father, businessman, entertainer, and inspiration to many.” “We mourn his sudden and tragic passing and send his family our deepest condolences,” he said.

32 Director’s Insight Randy Corbin, In a statement, Operation Uplift’s executive Funeral Home director, George E. Stone II, said that Corbin Owner, Dies “was a staple in the Proviso Township com- munity and provided services to thousands over his 60-year career. “He assisted many families who didn’t have means to provide funeral services for their loved ones. He was a true gentleman, pioneer businessman and a role model for us young- er African-American males that came after him.” In January, Operation Uplift honored Corbin with its George E. Stone, Sr. Humanitarian Award “for his life service and dedication to serving humanity.” In a Facebook post, Randall McFarland, the founder of the nonprofit Best of Proviso Township, remembered Corbin as “a true pioneer and pillar for our community.” “A true gentleman and knowledgeable lead- er,” McFarland said. “An absolute mountain of information and resources. He loved bending the ears of young people to pour into them.” Randy Corbin, the founder and president/CEO of Corbin Colonial Funeral Chapel in Chicago, has died. His death was confirmed by close relatives and friends on Facebook. Corbin, of Berkeley, was an active member of the Proviso Township community. For a time, he operated a branch of his funeral home in Maywood and he was a longtime advisory board member for the vener- able Maywood nonprofit Operation Uplift.

33 Notable deaths in 2019 pernell whitaker (55) - Pernell Whitaker phil Freelon (66) - Phil Freelon, architect died after being hit by a car in Virginia. He and co-designer of the Smithsonian National was 55 years old. Museum of African American History and Cul- ture, died July 9 after years of battling ALS. BUSHWICK BILL (52) - Bushwick Bill died June 9 john singleton (51) - Oscar-nominated movie at the age of 52. director John Singleton died April 29, following complications from a stroke.

34 Director’s Insight nipsey hussle (33) - Nipsey Hussle was shot andrew williams (82) - R&B singer-producer and killed on the afternoon of March 31 Andre Williams died Monday, March 18, outside of a clothing store he owned in Los according to his record label. Angeles. He was only 33-years-old. kristoff st. john (52) - Kristoff St. John, who dr. james frank (80) - Dr. James Frank, the starred in the popular soap opera “Young & former commissioner of the Southwestern the Restless” as Neil Winters, died Feb. 3 at Athletic Conference and the first black the age of 52. president of the NCAA, died Jan. 26.

35 kevin barnett (32) - Kevin Barnett, actor and john lyles (98) - “World War II African- comedian, died Jan. 22. American fighter pilot John Lyle, a Tuskegee Airman, is dead at age 98,” the Associated Press reported. Lyle died Jan. 7 after a battle with prostate cancer. frank robinson (83) - Frank Robinson, professional baseball’s first Black manager and Hall of Famer, died Feb. 7 at the age of 83.



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