To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death

by Suzanne E. Smith

From antebellum slavery to the twenty-first century, African American funeral directors have orchestrated funerals or "homegoing" ceremonies with dignity and pageantry. As entrepreneurs in a largely segregated trade, they were among the few black individuals in any community who were economically independent and not beholden to the local white power structure. Most important, their financial freedom gave them the ability to support the struggle...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674036212
• ISBN13: 9780674036215
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.5"